We loaded up the pickup bed
With every single thing she said
A girl would need at school, I swear:
A stereo, a beanbag chair,
Her grandma's quilt, a box of tapes,
A fan, a lamp, some purple drapes,
And half my pantry, I confess.
I couldn't send her off with less.

Two hundred ninety miles of road
To Reno, with her whole life stowed
Beneath a tarp and baling twine.
She slept the whole way. That was fine.

Her room was halfway down a hall
With someone's music through the wall,
A roommate from Las Vegas, who
Had never touched a cow. It's true.
We made the bed and hung the drapes
And found a dozen small escapes
From leaving, till there wasn't one.
Then Bonnie hugged us. We were done.

Her daddy didn't say a word
For ninety miles. And then I heard
Him clear his throat. And that's as near
As Ronnie gets to shed a tear.
Her sorrel gelding met the truck
And stood there nickering. No luck.

I set the table that next night
For three, from habit. That's all right.
And Ronnie, when he said the grace,
Said hers out loud, and left her place.

We bought him as a two-year-old,
   A gray with one white sock,
The spring our boy began to walk,
   And both of them could knock

Me flat across the kitchen yard
   Most any day they chose.
The boy grew up and moved to town.
   The horse grew white. God knows

He's carried me ten thousand miles
   Of sagebrush, rock, and snow,
And never once has bucked me off
   Except the once. You know.

We've had three dogs since we've had Smoke,
   And every one was good:
Old Tip, who'd work a cow alone,
   And Blue, who never would,

And Patsy, sweet as summer rain,
   Who rode with Ronnie, proud.
We buried them beside his fence.
   He watched, his old head bowed.

He's twenty-nine. His teeth are gone.
   I soak his feed to mash.
He's got a pup to boss around,
   A new one, name of Flash.

And Ronnie says, "One of these days..."
   And I say, "Hush. I know."
But that old gray has buried three,
   And he's not fixed to go.

So every night I take his mash
   Down where the dogs are laid,
And he and I and one more pup
   Stand till the colors fade.

A lady at a reading down in town
Once asked me, while I set my coffee down,
"And what do ranch wives do all day? You cook?"
And I just gave her what we call the look.

Why, yes, I cook. I cook for twenty men,
And then I wash the dishes up, and then
I keep the books, and argue with the bank,
And fix the float valve in the water tank.

I drive the feed truck when it's ten below
While Ronnie pitches bales off in the snow,
And when his knees are bad, I pitch, and he
Sits in the cab and tells me how. You see,

I vaccinate. I ear-tag. I can rope
Well, well enough. I doctor calves with hope
And penicillin. I can set a post
And stretch the wire. And then I cook the roast.

I've turned the water on the meadow hay
With just a shovel and a tarp all day,
And run the swather, and the baler too,
And raised two children, and I saw them through.

I've buried dogs and parents. I have prayed
For rain, and for the mortgage to be paid.
So, ma'am, I cook. You had that much right, too.
Now pass the pie, and tell me what you do.