Miss Ohio Teaches You to Drive

By CORINNA MCCLANAHAN SCHROEDER

Follow the serpentine river roads
toward the Little Miami’s lip. Pass through
the sycamore trunks, their whitewashed
limbs. See how they molt their skins.
These are curves I can still ride harder
than a man’s hips, roads my parents
never knew I drove. Feel that wind,
saturated, undercut with vespertine
chill. Let it frizz your hair. Turn up
the Smashing Pumpkins or the Cowboy
Junkies. That’s river musk on your teeth.
See how the lightning bugs burn their bulbs
just ahead? In the rearview, bats unstitch
your wake. Now the humming bridge
in your fingertips and thighs. It’ll carry
your weight ten thousand times. Learn
that darkening vein underneath, how
it pushes and pushes toward main stem
waters, toward a surefire way out of here.

 

Corinna McClanahan Schroeder is currently a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Tampa Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cave Wall, and Linebreak, and she is the recipient of a 2010 AWP Intro Journals Award in poetry. She received her MFA from the Universtiy of Mississippi where she received a John and Renée Grisham Fellowship.

[Purchase your copy of Issue 02 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Miss Ohio Teaches You to Drive

Related Posts

Image of a tomato seedling

Talks with the Besieged: Documentary Poetry from Occupied Ukraine  

ALEX AVERBUCH
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports

A Tour of America

MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER
This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.

cover for "True Mistakes" by Lena Moses-Schmitt

Giving the Poem a Body: Megan Pinto interviews Lena Moses-Schmitt

LENA MOSES-SCHMITT
I think sometimes movement can be used to show how thought is made manifest outside the body. And also just more generally: when you leave the house, when you are walking, your thoughts change because your environment changes, and your body is changing. Moving is a way of your consciousness interacting with the world.