Queen Of The Hill

My mother hung laundry on the clothesline
which stretched from the house to the waterwell

the same waterwell my father
would lower me into a bucket

to replace bricks or pull weeds
from the sides

the sweet smell of water rising
and escaping into the mouths

of butterflies or bees
and the billygoat would charge at mother

as soon as she bent over
to pull wet clothes from the basket

mother smacked it across the face
and the goat coughed up its crown.