Fall 2013, Volume 15

Poetry by Anne Britting Oleson

Ode to the Road

Summers we jammed sticks into the tar,
carving our names and sometimes worse:
shit, damn, hell.  Big Catholic families, many kids
to blame, we all knew we'd get away with it.
And with stealing “no trespassing” signs
from the woods, my grandfather's nickel bounty
a sure protection.  Under Mr. Nichols' tutelage
we knew how to lie still in the grass and levitate.
From forts of goldenrod in ditches, from the boughs
of firs, we hurled missiles—chokecherries,
green apples, chestnuts—at each other,
at passing cars.  We knew the paths
through the woods to the big rock and safety.
Leading up to Halloween, no pumpkin
was safe, no shaving cream left untouched
in any bathroom.  Street signs disappeared.
In the early darkness of autumn we climbed
through cellar or bedroom windows to meet
at the corner, laughing too hard at nothing,
hiding from headlights.  We flipped off strangers.
We thought we were bad.  You're just like
your parents before you, someone yelled once.
But we didn't care.  Or I didn't, until that
teenaged night when, at the big rock,
you kissed me, and I suddenly knew how easily
my feet could stick in that tar.

Underground

She feels lost, standing
at the long fall of concrete steps,
in the morning's surging crowd.

Like a stone, she remains
still in the stream which parts
around her.  Back, or forward?

Onto the platform, into the train,
District line inbound to a city
where she is unknown, unnoticed?

It makes no difference to anyone,
she is certain, unless
to this woman to her right,

wrestling a stroller
step-by-step downward, the baby's
bead-braided hair jouncing at each drop.

Let me help.  The young mother smiles,
all teeth and wary eyes, as together
they lift the pram between them

 

 

 

BIO: Anne Britting Oleson has been published widely in North America, Europe and Asia. She earned her MFA at the Stonecoast program of USM. She has published two chapbooks, The Church of St. Materiana (2007) and The Beauty of It (2010). Another book, Counting the Days, is scheduled for release next year.