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 Aurelia Waiting It was not a bad place,this place,her home. From a swell above town she watched brisk bluestem washed in wistful breeze and Union Pacific shuttle and grind between county elevators taking on grain and ambition. She could have, should have left. When she was younger, she stretched on her belly over the riverbank to seine those darting minnows. Later, she could gut a fish— just scale and slice and scoop it— no wonder at all. She could damn her twisting dirt road and every place that it led her, but there was plenty of good to be had. Her days spun with shade and waiting for the kettle whistle. And she waited for fat pods to burst and send their milkweed message, for crabapple blossoms and tender rain. But when the wind would sift the shafts of winter wheat, she was sure she should have gone. The stubble fields seemed bitter when she dug deep in her pocket for the fist of seeds to fling to the dull birds. There was always the rusted water pump and section of rotted fence. Always and again something to keep her. ...

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