Rhubarb          Jeremy Edward Shiok   First Prize 2003 Poetry Contest   When I was a child it grew in patches behind the barn, where often I would go hide from my sisters, or mother, when I had said the wrong thing or broken something precious.   When I had said the wrong thing there was no safer place to hide. There, on both sides of an old bulkhead, farmers long since gone planted it to hold firm the soil that held back the summer rains.   I hate you, I told her once, my mother, who called me sunshine, in what would be the only moment I caused her silence. I will never forget, nor ever miss those sudden tears.   On better days she pulled long stalks of it, jaded and red, and clipped from the ends the leaves as large as elephant ears, rinsing them in cool water beneath an outdoor spigot.   Here, come, dip this in sugar, I hear her say. The sweetness in her voice was irresistible, as was the string-textured plant I'd so often eaten alone with bitterness pulled from dirt.