Radio Border

by Thomas Reynolds

If heading out of town Friday night,
Tuning in the game on the local a.m. station,
One hand on the steering wheel,
The other clutching a coffee mug,
You might be to the Franklin County line,
Past miles of harvested wheat fields,
Past the abandoned Miller farm,
Before your signal falters.

The game might be at a critical point,
Say the fourth quarter with rival team
Threatening to score on third and short,
When the announcer’s voice cracks,
Dissolving in static
Just as you enter the first sloping hills,
Trees thinning out, canyons opening up,
Cow scattered miles ahead.

The signal might reappear,
Distant chatter checking in,
Before getting dimmer,
Only scratch and drone of static
Nattering on how not much really matters
This far out except wind through grass,
Darkness threatening to snuff headlights,
And but for one truck engine, silence.

Thomas Reynolds is a professor of English at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, Sport Literate, Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, Flint Hills Review, and Prairie Poetry. He is the author of three chapbooks: Electricity (1987), The Kansas Hermit Poems (2013) and Small Town Rodeos (2016). Woodley Memorial Press published his poetry collections Ghost Town Almanac (2008) and Home Field (2019).