Sierra Vista Wednesday She stands Behind the counter Twenty-seven years removed From her tenth grade education (The long division was always the hard part) Now touching the numbers without thought And growing large under the polyester double-knit Until the belly throws a laughing shadow Across the two-dimensional lusts Of some big city pornographer She knows them all and each by name And greets them with smiling questions And new reports of what They say (They say it should hit a hundred and four today) Men who wrestle earth and machines And the families they keep in trailers Who stop for tentative quarts of milk And Marlboros and black cherry slushes (Black cherry is our biggest seller) How many times she must hear Children make the case for cupcakes: "Look, you get two in a pack. Look, Mom." And every day she stands Resolute in the virtue of the pioneer matrons And reaps the rewards of the solid: Her partial fill of daily bread The charge of things she cannot keep A television, TV Guide, a bed And half an evening's sleep