In the hay-heavy summer, the boys tossed rocks
under the horses’ legs to ease their uphill climbs,
nearby: three sisters, land-weary.

I came rarely, a visitor, crossing the river dense
with silt and passing through the wild-strawberried woods.
We were careless girls.

For a snack we ate bread and butter, white sugar
granulating the surface. We cracked eggs into the sawdust
under the cool air of the barn.

When K. began her parabolic descent — a kerchief 
over her fragmenting strands of hair: I was, no longer,
the same visitor. How difficult

to learn of emergencies.

– Alicja Zapalska

Author’s Note: This poem is a distillation of many years’ worth of visits to the countryside of Poland as a child. As someone removed from the toil that comes from a livelihood dependent on the land, this poem splits between the back-breaking work required of children and the frivolity we allowed ourselves in brief moments.