Nowhere to Nowhere
By
BJ Omanson
When they sold off the farm she took the child
and caught a bus out of town—as for him,
with everyone gone and everything grim,
he opened a pint of bourbon, piled
pictures, letters and clothes in the yard,
doused them with kerosene, struck a match
and watched as they burnt to ashes, watched
and worked on his whiskey, working hard.
The next morning he caught an outbound freight
heading god-knows-where and he didn’t care—
he was down to nothing, a gypsy’s fare—
down to a rusty tin cup and a plate,
dice and a bible, a bedroll and fate,
down to a bone-jarring ride on a train
through country dying and desperate for rain,
running nowhere to nowhere and running late.
and caught a bus out of town—as for him,
with everyone gone and everything grim,
he opened a pint of bourbon, piled
pictures, letters and clothes in the yard,
doused them with kerosene, struck a match
and watched as they burnt to ashes, watched
and worked on his whiskey, working hard.
The next morning he caught an outbound freight
heading god-knows-where and he didn’t care—
he was down to nothing, a gypsy’s fare—
down to a rusty tin cup and a plate,
dice and a bible, a bedroll and fate,
down to a bone-jarring ride on a train
through country dying and desperate for rain,
running nowhere to nowhere and running late.
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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 ©2017 by BJ Omanson, “Nowhere to Nowhere,” from Stark County Poems, (Monongahela Books, 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of BJ Omanson and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.