Debra Nystrom, “Kids Running Downhill”

Howls along a pasture road; jagged
shadows rippling cheat-grass, each leaning back a little
against gravity except the one in front who’s hit
the place where fence rails sag
and start curving up toward the wide
field where the last kid decides
he’s got to fall. He knows
in the heat the rest will drop after him—noise
of mockery, breath heaving,
then finally quiet—turkey buzzards above
revolving on the thermals,
tilting, scanning for a fox to trail—
nothing more, nobody thinking this a thing
to remember—who decides about remembering?

Other poems from Bad River Road, Nystrom’s third collection, include “Twins” (from Slate), “Outer Banks” (Poetry Daily), “West River, Driving Home” (Orion), and “Window” (AGNI).

Many of the poems call back to the South Dakota of her childhood; as she explains, “My poems have returned there in different ways over time; it’s the setting where basic questions that occupy all of us seem to come into focus for me. My work does go other places, but South Dakota seems to stay in my peripheral vision. It’s an overwhelming landscape—starkly beautiful, the horizon all around you, and everywhere the sky’s immensity—there’s a physical attachment to land, and to family, that draws me back.”

3 April 2009 | poetry |