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Column 417

Back Road

Intro by Ted Kooser
03.17.2013

There’s an old coun­try-west­ern song with the refrain, That’s what hap­pens when two worlds col­lide,” and in this poem by Bruce Guernsey, who divides his year between Illi­nois and Maine, we see a near col­li­sion between two worlds.

Back Road

Winter mornings
driving past
I’d see these kids
huddled like grouse
in the plowed ruts
in front of their shack
waiting for the bus,
three small children
bunched against the drifts
rising behind them.

This morning
I slowed to wave
and the smallest,
a stick of a kid
draped in a coat,
grinned and raised
his red, raw hand,
the snowball
packed with rock
aimed at my face.
 

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Disclaimer

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. Poem copyright ©2012 by Bruce Guernsey from his most recent book of poems, From Rain: Poems, 1970-2010, Ecco Qua Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Bruce Guernsey and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

Column 416