“Hay Hook,” Poem, Emilee Kinney
Flat trailer with warped wood rusted wheel hulls
covering tires that should have been replaced
the trailer is hooked to the baler the baler is hooked
to the tractor we are hooked to nothing
until the hay hook we wield spears the flesh
of square bales birthed from the baler Stray stalks
smother the trailer
our boots slip
and slide as the men and I stack
and interlock the bales—
a 3D puzzle snaking through the field
I am not the first woman to swing this hook to brace
against the rocking base to peel blistered
skin from my palms scratch the hay rash
inflaming my forearms my salt making it sting
We stay atop the trailer by telling stories
about what could happen if we don’t
There was a man who fell from the trailer once
the story changes each time we mount this field
He swung the bale up to the fifth tier
his body strained
his hook stuck twisted under the twine
he didn’t let go his wrist broke
when the momentum threw him off the side
broken wrist loosened his grip
he slipped down before the wheel hulls
It takes a lot for a train of machines to stop
One tier two
I cannot reach the fifth
cannot swing the bale half my size over my head
even with leverage from the hook
Each time I try I catch a glimpse of the field
flying beneath us feel how close I am to the edge
We laugh at the story that goes
the sun was too hot and so was his wife
At the edge of the field she held her hand high
waving for him to come home
sun-drunk he lost his balance
the trailer hitched from a rock in its path tossed him
when he landed the hay hook bore deep into his side
The stories always end there with the man being dead
the job unfinished the hay raked but not baled
They tell me like it’s a lesson to be careful
or just a reminder this work is dangerous
I think they’re trying to scare me off
so I tell them the rest of the story
The man dies on a hot day and his hot wife
gathers him like cornhusks or spilt grain seed
tells the rest to carry on pries the hay hook
from his ribs as a wishbone plucked from a bird
offers it to them to help finish the job
They don’t take it she loops it through her belt
cuts some twine from the baler
wraps it above his boots three times before
tying it in the middle a perfect farmer’s knot
I imagine she wears a thin flannel
so she can roll up her sleeves so the men
can see the body that makes her a woman
she drags the man
to her truck yes it’s hers
she tosses him into her truckbed
curses about the blood on her boots
when she gets home she does a shot of whisky
pours a little on his body
does another
strings him up in the barn
uses his hay hook to harvest his fat
collects it in jars passed down
by her mother grandmother
jars she’ll reuse for canning pear jelly in the spring
for now fat slops along the glass sides the metal clinks
she prepares tallow
from his meat crafts candles
and hand cream so he’ll finally
be useful or so she can keep him close
whichever feels right
The men don’t like my story
threaten to push me off the trailer
I swing my hay hook into the nearest square bale and let go
I say in these stories
the women never die
Emilee Kinney is a poet from rural Michigan. She received her PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi where she served as the Associate Poetry Editor for Mississippi Review. She holds an MFA from SIU Carbondale, and her work has been anthologized in Savor: Poems for the Tongue and in The Book of Jobs: Poems about Work. She is listed as a finalist for Driftwood's 2024 Poetry Prize, and most recently, a winner of AWP's 2026 Intro Journals Project. Her poems have been published in Passages North, West Trestle Review, THE SHORE, SWWIM, and elsewhere.