"A Road in Kentucky" by Robert Hayden:
And when that ballad lady went
to ease the lover whose life she broke,
oh surely this is the road she took,
road all hackled through barberry fire,
through cedar and alder and sumac and thorn.Red clay stained her flounces
and stones cut her shoes
and the road twisted on to his loveless house
and his cornfield dying
in the scarecrow’s arms.And when she had left her lover lying
so stark and so stark, with the Star-of-Hope
drawn over his eyes, oh this is the road
that lady walked in the cawing light,
so dark and so dark in the briary light.
("A Road From Kentucky" from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden by Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright © 1962, 1966 by Robert Hadyen. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Photo by Flickr user joefutrelle )
The Dish 