Poetry By Alison Heron Hruby

Shawn Nystrand CC



Calling Summer

Across this eastern hill road 
you may see curious wonders: 
cows splitting mud earth to drink
from ancient silt, deep buried coal, 
still-pink red-bud leaves and lime 
slivers branching— membranes on 
the rind mountain from where you’ll drive
to see me. Sharp trees, calling summer.
But now, you’re fire in a distant farm field 
in the one patch holding light. I wonder 
what the windows on your house are like, 
what are the ways your paint peels 
in beauty. My windows, thin screens 
torn from other people’s mischief. 
I say, when you come, let’s call 
summer. Us, a slow beating heart.

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Us, As a Drive-In Movie

Under the arc of moving stars, my teenage daughter and I continue as a drive-in movie, play our conversation along the sky. We sit, the windshield a screen, our garage door a screen. We look straight ahead and build towards each other with talk, though we send our words outwards, towards the arc of night. This evening, she tells me about the Cold War from her history class, I tell her I lived the war, knew it from a touch perspective, and how strange. I will that her teenage years might implode into mine, but all I feel is stillness. I share that the construction at her high school has been such a surprise to me—the work’s sudden end. I say, I thought the orange cones and hills of gravel would be there until after she was gone from the school. When we were gone from there, I mean. The finish would belong to someone else. She says, you sound like a younger version of me. I wonder if she knows what we are. The stars wait behind light from our city and the meandering clouds. We make our movie, and I hope for her to tell me.




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Alison Heron Hruby is an associate professor of English education at Morehead State University in eastern Kentucky and lives in Lexington, Kentucky. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Juste Literary, Sleet Magazine, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Alien Buddha Press, and elsewhere. You can find her on X @aheronhruby and Instagram @alliehope68