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even though no sani-seat covers in the regular stall in the ladies room at the Standard Station in Lovelock, a town where lovers lock their love. In the handicapped stall the lock doesn’t work. You prop your purse against the door. The Sikh at the register scowls. I wonder why he’s here. I miss the woman with bubblegum hair. I wonder what happened to her.  Fernley on ramp Enter Interstate 80 and head east These are the exits you didn’t take: Nightingale Jessup Toulon Oreana Rye Patch Dam Humboldt Imlay Mill City Dun Glen Cosgrave Rose Creek Button Point Exit the interstate at Golconda Mostly dirt road home Painting by Marti Bein   Jackrabbits eating apples on the lawn,
unripened fruit dropping out of season. I find their quietude disconcerting, disguising damage they did last winter killing my young poplar trees. I find morning stillness disconcerting. Even without a breeze, I get a whiff of the Goose Creek fire in Idaho, and a whiff of death from the inferno of the Carr fire in Redding, California. I can’t really smell terrified children, singed fur, charred bark, but it feels like it. |
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AuthorNancy Harris McLelland taught creative writing, composition, and literature for over twenty years and Conducted writing workshops for the Western Folklife Center, Great Basin College , and the Great Basin Writing Project . An Elko County native with a background in ranching. McLelland has presented her "Poems from Tuscarora" Both at daytime and evening events at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. Her essay, "Border Lands: Cowboy Poetry and the Literary Canon" is in the anthology Cowboy Poetry Matters . Categories |
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