by Larry Schug

I once rented a basement house on an old farm

between dead Silver Corners and deader Jakeville

with a couple guys I worked with at the packing plant.

There was a hand pump in the yard for water

and an outhouse out back by the rock pile

where old bottles might be found,

filled with mud and decaying leaves, but unbroken.

What I remember about that basement is this,

I pissed in a fruit jar I kept by the bed,

rather than face that cold outhouse

in the middle of a Minnesota January night.

I put up with the odor until morning,

when I emptied the bottle in a snowbank,

a yellow splotch, like a Charolais bull signing his name.

Suddenly, one morning the outhouse door opened,

you came out cursing the cold,

women can’t pee in a jar, you said.

I laughed out loud, wished

you were going back inside to warm up my bed.