“Banishment,” by Martha Rhodes

Poetry faculty member Martha Rhodes was recently featured in the Kenyon Review Online. Read an excerpt of “Banishment” below:

Banishment
From the house barely,
nakedly, burningly driven
into pasture beyond—
bad daughter thrown across acres
without even her mother’s shawls
and pillows. Where to sleep where
hopping things won’t hop and nest
in her hair—why thrown out,
why not him too? All we did
was kiss—a small shallow kiss.

Read the poem in its entirety (and an additional poem, “Inconsolable”) here: https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2020-novdec/selections/martha-rhodes-763879/