Poetry of Kansas

The Country Store

False-fronted building of unpainted wood,
A sagging hitch rack, where the horses stood;
Within, lax loafers hugged the glowing stove,
Above whose forms dense smoke clouds interwove.
Tobacco-spotted floors met grimy walls
Half hid with shelves piled high with overalls,
Blue shirts, some overshoes, and coarse-cut plug,
Bologna, beans, and sorghum by the jug;
And where the former owners piled their feet
And speculated on crops of corn and wheat,
Stood a scarred counter, with a glass-caged cheese,
Salt pork and sauerkraut and cans of peas;
And from the cobwebbed window pane,
That knew no washing save by friendly rain,
The sunlight, streaming through a broken shade,
Lit up the cat's slow counter-promenade.

__William P. McKenna.

Contemporary Kansas Poetry
Helen Rhoda Hoopes
page 83
(Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Company. 1927)

 
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October 29, 2002 / John & Susan Howell / Wichita, Kansas / howell@kotn.org
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