Christina Hauck

Trouble

The summer she was twelve
a stray terrier started tagging along
on all her adventures—raiding a neighbor’s
strawberry patch, hiking past the timberline,
skinny dipping with her brother and his friends
in the cold little creek. She named the dog Trouble,
and pretty soon, when the people saw the mischievous,
long-legged girl on the cusp her shining, dog at heel,
they would say, uh oh, Double Trouble.

~~~

The day her father drove up to take them down
the tall mountain, she begged and cried, promised
sun and moon, galaxies of perfect obedience, but
nonetheless they drove away, back to Santa Fe,
junior high, dull routine, leaving Trouble behind
in his usual place on the porch.

~~~

After that, the girl started looking
for trouble—skipping class. A beating.
Smoking behind the shed. A beating.
Driving out into the desert with a boy,
laying down on the cool bed of a pickup,
spreading her legs, drowning in stars—

~~~

She broke the news at the kitchen table
half expecting her father to kill her—
a knife across her quavering throat,
shallow grave at the foot of the mountain.

~~~

She bowed her head, the girl they exiled
all the way to Texas—
a Girl’s College, her parents told
their congregation and friends.

She made promises: she’d change
her name to Mrs, get a job, go to church
as often as they liked, keep herself
out of trouble, if only they would let her keep

the blue-eyed baby boy.

(Phyllis Calkins Hauck, 1925-1990)

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Christina Hauck is a Pushcart-nominated poet and Yaddo fellow. She lives on unceded land of the Kaw Indians in Lawrence, KS, with her wife and other mammals. Her poems have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Coal City Review, Flint Hills Review, and other  journals. Her manuscript, An Angel and Other Apparitions, was a finalist for the Gunpowder Press Barry Spacks Poetry Prize (2025).