Holly Guran
One Lane Dirt Road Pitch Dark
Someone else is driving this car
to where black papier mâché figures
sit in an old coach, a devil’s carriage
outlined in white, near the escaped
lost souls who consort
with dangling skeletons.
Chains of colored lights sway
at odd angles. The pickups sit silent.
I try to admire this landscape.
Earlier under sun, a raven screeched
above the lake and the loons made worried
calls when the eagle flew too close—
at dawn I’ll leave this place,
my own lost soul in tow, dragging.
Holly Guran’s
recent collection,
Now Before and Ever, appeared in September 2023. Author of
Twilight Chorus, River of Bones and two chapbooks, Holly received a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. The popular Boston reading series she coordinates encourages new writers to try out their work. Selections from her narrative poems, based on a 19th-century correspondence between a mill girl and the editor she married, have been performed at the Lowell National Historic Park.