What would you do on a night
with no moon in the starless sky
and the summery grass wet
and colder than summer,
and a motorcycle suddenly visible
in your headlights, crumpled halfway
up a field, a helmet lying
by the side of the road
and a voice from the ditch by that road
calling help me to whom else but you
and you with no phone
and no stomach for such things
aiming your headlights on the body
the leg bent severely
the bone sticking out, the face
sixteen, unmarked, surprised
to be where it is or to watch you
walking awkwardly toward him
and what do you do when there's
no needle or morphine
you like a bad angel hoping
for some nerve of his to snap
or a deeper sleep to come
and lift the burden of responsibility
I'll get help, you say, throwing
your sweater over him, touching his hair
remembering the house with lights
shining a couple of miles away
and what if it were your son
lying crumpled in the ditch
and crying out sharply
from the middle of nowhere
what would you not do to lug him
into your car, jutting bones and all
no matter how loudly he howled
or how the howling knifed at your gut
but all you're doing now
is turning away
leaving him in the wet grass
with his crushed voice
without someone to stand
over him and spread his hands
on everything broken
someone like you
getting into your car
speeding toward the distant lights
through every dangerous curve
as if your recklessness were a kind of mercy
as if you were doing all you could
to ward off the darkness
the faster you drove,
the further you left him behind.
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Winter Feature 2010
-
Feature
- Poets in Person An HD video visit with Stephen Dunn in Frostburg, MD
-
Poetry
- Jonathan Aaron
- Michael Blumenthal
- Billy Collins
- Philip Dacey
- Carl Dennis
- Gregory Djanikian
- Stephen Dobyns
- Stephen Dunn
- B.H. Fairchild
- Kathleen Graber
- Jane Hirshfield
- Tony Hoagland
- Dorianne Laux
- Thomas Lux
- D. Nurkse
- Alicia Ostriker
- Lawrence Raab
- J. Allyn Rosser
- Dave Smith
- Gerald Stern
- Ellen Bryant Voigt
- C.K. Williams
- Robert Wrigley
-
Essay
- Gregory Djanikian Stephen Dunn's Compositional Strategies: Verse And Reverse
- David Rigsbee The Despoiled And Radiant Now: Ambivalence And Secrets In Stephen Dunn
-
Book Review
- David Rigsbee reviews Here and Now: Poems
by Stephen Dunn
- David Rigsbee reviews Here and Now: Poems