Thrush Poetry Journal
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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.




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