"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:
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.
