Kate Buckley
Bluebridge Lane
Everyone thought the old bridge went nowhere.
No one thought to question the girl
or her brothers – where they were going
or when they’d be home. They made their way
up the old farm road – cement crenellated
and cracked with wildflowers in its teeth.
The bridge went rose-colored in the dawning,
ivy-leaved at twilight but most times
looked blue. It seemed to stretch for miles.
It seemed they would never reach it.
Sometimes a toad would block their path, blink,
and croak out something – they argued what.
The elder brother claimed a curse. The younger,
blessing. The girl held out for a warning.
Kate Buckley is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Spalding University. Winner of the James
Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review in 2008, she's the author of A Wild
Region (Moon Tide Press, 2008); Follow Me Down is forthcoming from Tebot Bach. Recent
poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Shenandoah, Slipstream, and
North American Review. A ninth-generation Kentuckian, she now lives in Laguna Beach,
California. Check out her website.
Home
Issue Three
Bluebridge Lane
Everyone thought the old bridge went nowhere.
No one thought to question the girl
or her brothers – where they were going
or when they’d be home. They made their way
up the old farm road – cement crenellated
and cracked with wildflowers in its teeth.
The bridge went rose-colored in the dawning,
ivy-leaved at twilight but most times
looked blue. It seemed to stretch for miles.
It seemed they would never reach it.
Sometimes a toad would block their path, blink,
and croak out something – they argued what.
The elder brother claimed a curse. The younger,
blessing. The girl held out for a warning.
Kate Buckley is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Spalding University. Winner of the James
Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review in 2008, she's the author of A Wild
Region (Moon Tide Press, 2008); Follow Me Down is forthcoming from Tebot Bach. Recent
poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Shenandoah, Slipstream, and
North American Review. A ninth-generation Kentuckian, she now lives in Laguna Beach,
California. Check out her website.
Home
Issue Three
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| issue three |
