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Column 281

One September Afternoon

Intro by Ted Kooser
08.08.2010

Anton Chekhov, the mas­ter of the short sto­ry, was able to see whole worlds with­in the inter­ac­tions of sim­ple Russ­ian peas­ants, and in this lit­tle poem by Leo Dan­gel, who grew up in rur­al South Dako­ta, some­thing sim­i­lar happens.

One September Afternoon

Home from town
the two of them sit
looking over what they have bought
spread out on the kitchen table
like gifts to themselves.
She holds a card of buttons
against the new dress material
and asks if they match.
The hay is dry enough to rake,
but he watches her
empty the grocery bag.
He reads the label
on a grape jelly glass
and tries on
the new straw hat again.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "One September Afternoon" ©1987 by Leo Dangel, whose most recent book of poetry is The Crow on the Golden Arches, Spoon River Poetry Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from Paddlefish, No. 3, 2009, by permission of Leo Dangel and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.