By Young Smith
In the hillside cow pasture, an island of bamboo.
We boys creep inside, find the old homestead—
nothing left of the house but a chimney and a well.
We crouch at the lip of stone, drop pebbles
into the dark. They splash in the water we can’t see below.
Our eyes are shaded by our bangs and the brims
of our caps. The leaves of the bamboo make peculiar
shadows on our skin. In the distance, very faintly,
the ringing of truck tires along the interstate.
For a long time, not one of us speaks.
Copyright 2018 Smith
Young Smith has received fellowships from the NEA and the Kentucky Arts Council. His poems have appeared in SHARK REEF, Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Iowa Review, Pleiades, Crazyhorse, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, American Literary Review, Arts & Letters, Atlanta Review, The Midwest Quarterly, The New Orleans Review, and other publications. He is author of the collection, In a City You Will Never Visit, published by Greencup Books. He is an associate professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where he is a core faculty member with the Bluegrass Writers Studio, a low-residency MFA program.
All work by Young Smith
