Poem for October

Three Dollars Cash

Three dollars cash
For a pair of catalog shoes
Was what the midwife charged
My mama
For bringing me.
“We wasn’t so country then,” says Mom,
“You being the last one—
And we couldn’t, like
We done
When she brought your
Brother,
Send her out to the
Pen
And let her pick
Out
A pig.”

Alice Walker

This poem by Alice Walker, who was brought up in Eatonton Georgia, makes me wonder if anything similar used to happen on Arran. Poem and words contributed this month by Cicely Gill.