Newsletter sign up

Be the first to know when new American Life in Poetry columns are live.

Column 641

Outboard Motor

Intro by Ted Kooser
07.02.2017

We’ve used sev­er­al of Elise Hempel’s poems in this col­umn, and this one is from her lat­est book from Able Muse Press, Sec­ond Rain. To be a child, out for a fast ride in a boat with a father, well, that’s a fine time. Elise Hempel lives in Illinois. 

Outboard Motor

After my father unhooded it, lugged it down
the steep path to the boat and clamped it on,
drew back the cord again and again like a pitch
about to be thrown, grimacing with each
whining refusal, and muttered, finally said
She doesn't want to start, after it always did,
and we shoved away from the pier, rowed out of the dense
tangle of weeds and lily pads, not once
did our resting oars uncross their feet,
not even as we entered the shallow inlet
between our lake and the next, just purring through
the reeds in that narrow passage, over the billow
of silt, the rocks, never getting stuck before
we flew through the waves, his hand guiding the tiller.

Share this column

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 ©2016 by Elise Hempel, “Outboard Motor,” from Second Rain, (Able Muse Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Elise Hempel and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.