Produce Wagon
By
Roy Scheele
The heat shimmer along our street
one midsummer midafternoon,
and wading up through it a horse’s hooves,
and each shoe raising a tongueless bell
that tolled in the neighborhood,
till the driver drew in the reins
and the horse hung its head and stood.
And something in a basket thin
as shavings (blackberries? or a ghost
of the memory of having tasted them?)
passing into my hands as mother paid,
and the man got up again,
slapping the loop from the reins,
and was off on his trundling wagon.
one midsummer midafternoon,
and wading up through it a horse’s hooves,
and each shoe raising a tongueless bell
that tolled in the neighborhood,
till the driver drew in the reins
and the horse hung its head and stood.
And something in a basket thin
as shavings (blackberries? or a ghost
of the memory of having tasted them?)
passing into my hands as mother paid,
and the man got up again,
slapping the loop from the reins,
and was off on his trundling wagon.
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Disclaimer
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. Poem copyright ©2010 by Roy Scheele from his most recent book of poetry, “A Far Allegiance,” The Backwaters Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Roy Scheele and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.