By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker describes two children, aged three and one, and a man absent for both. Work, children's fussing, a relative reading to them, and gathering rubarb in the holler are connected to affection for him.
Ordinary caregiving and paid work occupy the same frame as an absent partner and a favored plant. The source calls the relative my aint and explicitly attends to pronunciation. These are the speaker's statements; the page alone does not establish the author's family history or gender.
The speaker says 'I only got two kids / most have more', 'He was not here for either', 'and my aint / reads to them', and ends 'I was picking rubarb / which I love just about / as much as him'.
Plain family details are delivered with dry humor. 'aint' and 'rubarb' are kept as typed, and the family statements are the poem's.