First Things RSS Feed - Greg Alan Brownderville https://www.firstthings.com/author/greg-alan-brownderville en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:51:19 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/greg-alan-brownderville 60 The Mailbox https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/the-mailbox https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/the-mailbox Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 This white-dust road is in for an evil storm today.
The wind seems up to something by the casual way
it whistles by. Here, sixteen miles from anywhere,
a weedy mailbox waits, mounted on an auger,
a spiral blade ripped from a combine harvester.
This hard twist of American DNA,
caduceus-like, has cured some beery boy’s addiction
to knocking down the mailbox in his black S10.
The flag is a red ear against the head’s bright white
and the door a hound dog’s tongue hung out.
The letters of a letter crawl to life and bite,
blackwidowing the hand that reaches in.

Continue Reading »

]]>