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In March, where the Kickapoo Bends
“ I hope I die before I get old. ”
· The Who
Three of us walked, though that
was hardly all, down white-
tail path through bracken wood,
oak and hickory, track
of elms disease had wracked
and left to stand, bark peeling
from wood the color of bone,
all home for woodpecker
and later sweet fodder
for morel. Three of us
walked, though that was hardly
all, down past a rusting
wood stove, bright heaps of glass
and stone, the lone jack-in-
the-pulpit rising like sex
after sixty. Three of us walked -
one who'd patched his marriage,
one who'd found a job, one
whose wife and son had slipped
cancer's grip – down through damp
folds of Solomon's seal,
both false and real, through May
Apple's raised umbrellas
and multiflora rose
someone's good intentions
had made tangled pest, down
to the Kickapoo bend,
a bluff of osage-orange,
down where bluebells bloomed
ground to sky and our steps
flushed a chorus of doves
whose wings burst feathered
laughter. Down where bells
rang our silent thanks –
warm beer as explosive
as middle-age we once
blithely swore we'd refuse.
Note: This poem appeared in Kevin Stein's collection Chance Ransom (University
of Illinois Press, 2000). © Kevin Stein. Used with permission. |
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