The House, the Barn, the Sheep, the Chickens

Problem was, she felt too much
or not at all, a practiced yearning
that had no name. Her kids grown,
gone, forty years behind her,
fields rutted, shutters listless,
the barn propped and cock-eyed,
all those young bride prayers wasted.

Creatures like sheep, used to traveling,
know about moving on, guided by
the compass of their will, boredom
an affliction that can’t be outrun, desire
a grassy knob worth dying for. How
utterly a body is overruled by heartache.

Outside red oaks thrash, tangled
in root and bird song and whatever
might fall from the sky.
Her last undoing was to set her sassy
banties free to peck and roam,
scratch out a destiny of their own.

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Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collections include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen, winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award, and Serving. Her poems appear in numerous journals including Verse Daily, Rattle, The New York Times, and on her website: karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the founder/executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP) and editor of the WOAP anthology series, Women Speak, volumes 1-6. She is Poet Laureate of Ohio.