Needing credit, he edges through the heavy door, head down,
and quietly closes the screen behind him.
This is Blankenship, father of five, owner of a plow horse and a cow.
Out of habit he leans against the counter by the stove.
He pats the pockets of his overalls
for the grocery list penciled on a torn paper bag,
then rolls into a strip of newsprint
the last of his Prince Albert.
He hardly takes his eyes off his boot, sliced on one side
to accommodate his bunion, and hands
the list to my grandfather. Bull of the Woods, three tins
of sardines, Spam, peanut butter, two loaves of bread (Colonial),
then back to the musty feed room
where he ignores the hand truck leaning against the wall
and hefts onto his shoulder a hundred-pound bag of horse feed.
He rises to full height, snorting
but hardly burdened,
and parades, head high, to the bed of his pickup.
from The Southern Review