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Pam Baggett <br /> 8800 Wilkerson Road <br /> Cedar Grove NC 27231 <br /> 919-537-2164 <br /> nightair@mindspring.com <br /> Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania, 1857 <br /> She slips out past the steaming kettle, <br /> her mother turning bacon that sizzles <br /> in the pan. Snatches an extra jacket <br /> from the porch's hook, the woolen lining <br /> iced with cold. Yesterday's rake leans <br /> on a pile of leaves that Amanda races past, <br /> anxious to escape her family's view. <br /> She works the gate latch until it opens, <br /> snags her sleeve and hears it rip <br /> but she runs on, hefty in her layers, <br /> which are getting too warm. In the orchard, <br /> the last shriveled apples. Amanda stuffs <br /> her pockets full. She wishes for summer, <br /> raspberries, her sister's hands braiding <br /> her hair: wild thoughts meant to still <br /> her shaking. She opens her mouth to sing <br /> but words won't come, counts backward <br /> silently from one hundred instead <br /> as she hurries to help the Negro hiding <br /> in the woods. She has promised, could do <br /> no less after finding him starved and shivering <br /> a day ago. She leans against a Winesap <br /> to catch her breath, adjusts her father's <br /> worn boots clutched under her coat, the sack <br /> of bread-heels stolen from the pie safe. <br /> She coughs into her elbow, sniffs the air, <br /> smells apples and a hint of snow. <br /> "Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania, 1857" appeared in Crab Orchard Review, vol. 17, No. 2 <br /> (Summer/Fall 2012). <br />