Starting Line
Stretching beneath
The sign with two bullet holes,
I gauge the gray sky,
Pulsing veins of darkness.
Swimmer
Wind rushes in
To fill space
Where sea water once
Raced for shore.
Specimen
All afternoon, incredulous
Farmers in trucks
Slow to ask if I
Need a ride, son.
Flint Hills
At the ridge top
Semis swoop past
Honking great blasts
Of pterodactyl breath.
Race Official
Wind whistles
A break through
Windows of
An abandoned house.
Diner Lunch
When I tell the waitress
I’m running across the county,
She says she’s running too,
Out the door at five o’clock.
Rain Shower
I’m now walking
With my head down
Rivulets
Pacing like blood.
Freedom
The old bull escaped
From the broken pen
Jogs a bit as I pass,
Vanishing into the ravine.
Gas Station Window
Plastic bottle under
The outdoor tap,
I watch a waterbug dash
Across the mirrored plains.
Exhaustion
My breath becomes
Some panting beast
Running beside me
Barking into the wind.
Town
Suddenly land falls away
To reveal miles ahead
A sparse silent line of homes
With a sun shaft sprinting past.
County Line
I lean against the sign
For fifteen minutes while
Storm clouds inside me
Veer away into the hills.
~ Thomas Reynolds
Thomas Reynolds is an associate English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, The MacGuffin, Flint Hills Review, and Prairie Poetry. Woodley Press of Washburn University published his poetry collection Ghost Town Almanac in 2008. His chapbook The Kansas Hermit Poems will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2013.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 