A COUNTRY MILE
A COUNTRY MILE
by Clinton Van Inman
Mixed with tobacco juice
And red summer clay
It came from the edge
Of the cornfield
The clout that soured
Past the unplowed field
Smashed into the red barn
Scattering the cawing crows.
1 thought on “A COUNTRY MILE”
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Short and mysterious with a lot of impact. Here’s my guess. “It” is a person, a farm hand perhaps but maybe a stranger come “a country mile” into the barn to spit–the “clout” that he embodies, “mixed with tobacco juice and red summer clay,” disrupting the customary goings on. Vivid and disturbing. A first-hand account, it seems, deftly leaving its provoker out of the picture to make the invasion hit sinisterly harder.