Kevin McLellan
I'm Not Coming Home Anymore
Before you were gone / windows down
in your parked pickup truck
faced the defunct railroad / tracks and ties
atop the sloped sandbank / the arrogance
of stable flies / smell of hot sand
and school bus yellow mustard
and salami / the faded 8 track tape
from the dashboard to the player /
Hank Williams’ voice slightly warped
before your memory started to leave / yes
before you were gone / when oxidation
and erosion were so goddamn pretty
Kevin McLellan is the author of the chapbooks Shoes on a wire (Split Oak, forthcoming) runner-up for the 2012 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010), a collaborative series of poems with numerous women poets. He has recent or forthcoming poems in books and journals including: 2014 Poet’s Market, American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review Online, Thrush Poetry Journal, Western Humanities Review, Witness and numerous others. Kevin lives in Cambridge MA, and sometimes teaches poetry workshops at URI.
Return to July 2014 Edition
Before you were gone / windows down
in your parked pickup truck
faced the defunct railroad / tracks and ties
atop the sloped sandbank / the arrogance
of stable flies / smell of hot sand
and school bus yellow mustard
and salami / the faded 8 track tape
from the dashboard to the player /
Hank Williams’ voice slightly warped
before your memory started to leave / yes
before you were gone / when oxidation
and erosion were so goddamn pretty
Kevin McLellan is the author of the chapbooks Shoes on a wire (Split Oak, forthcoming) runner-up for the 2012 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010), a collaborative series of poems with numerous women poets. He has recent or forthcoming poems in books and journals including: 2014 Poet’s Market, American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review Online, Thrush Poetry Journal, Western Humanities Review, Witness and numerous others. Kevin lives in Cambridge MA, and sometimes teaches poetry workshops at URI.
Return to July 2014 Edition