This selection, chosen by guest editor Sierra Farrare, is from Alone in the House of My Heart by Kari Gunter-Seymour (Ohio University Press 2022).
The Whole Shebang Up for Debate
Today I gave a guy a ride,
caught in a cloudburst
jogging down East Mill Street.
Skinny, backpacked, newspaper
a makeshift shield, unsafe
under any circumstances.
I don’t know what possessed me.
I make bad decisions, am forgetful,
cling to structure and routine
like static electricity to polyester,
a predicament of living under
the facade I always add to myself.
Said he needed to catch a GoBus,
shaking off droplets before climbing in.
He gabbed about Thanksgiving plans,
his mom’s cider-basted turkey,
grandma’s pecan-crusted pumpkin pie.
It was a quick masked ride.
Bless you, he said, unfolding himself
from the car. No awkward goodbyes,
no what do I owe you? Just Bless you
and a backward wave.
At the stop sign, my fingers stroked
the dampness where he sat minutes before.
Sometimes life embraces you
so unconditionally, it shifts
your body from shadow
into a full-flung lotus of light.
Kari Gunter-Seymour is the 2020–24 poet laureate of Ohio and the author of A Place So Deep inside America It Can’t Be Seen. A ninth-generation Appalachian, she is the editor of I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices and the founder and host of the seasonal performance series Spoken & Heard. Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, New Ohio Review, One, and numerous other publications.
Sierra Farrare is a short fiction writer from Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to a limited self-published run of her collection, Friday Night Hand Grenade, you can also find her work featured in Pretty Owl Poetry and University of Baltimore’s Welter.
