Pickle Belt
by Theodore Roethke The fruit rolled by all day. They prayed the cogs would creep; They thought about Saturday pay,And Sunday sleep. Whatever he smelled was good: The fruit and flesh smells mixed. There beside him she stood,—— And he, perplexed; He, in his shrunken britches, Eyes rimmed with pickle dust, Prickling with all the itches Of sixteen-year-old lust |