2024 Frontier OPEN Winner: “To the Man who Hugged Me after I Rear-ended Him,” By Marianne Kunkel
Join us in celebrating Marianne Kunkel, the winner of our 2024 Frontier OPEN.
Read her poem, “To the Man who Hugged Me after I Rear-ended Him,” selected by our editors, below.
This year, Kunkel’s poem stood out against a field of excellent and very high-quality submissions for its depiction of a random act of kindness, reminding readers that there is compassion and understanding in this world which at times can seem very fraught. Kunkel’s poem, for us, is a perfect expression of the enduring nature of hope, and we hope it resonates with you the way it resonated with us.
To the Man who Hugged Me after I Rear-ended Him
until stopping at a red light to reply to a text
from a neighbor about dandelions in my yard
blowing into hers. I could insist I never text
and drive, especially with my young daughter
babbling in the backseat. I finished the text
as a light in my periphery turned green—
not our light, not our turn lane. Mindlessly,
I gunned it. You had no questions but What the fuck?
Although I love excuses, what I love more
is bleak surrender—let the dandelions metastasize,
rain flood my basement, breaking news jam my inbox,
that photo of a bony, gasping Gazan boy.
I am so sorry, I sputtered, as your eyes glided over
chunks of hair spilling from my bun, my daughter
whimpering, and back to my front bumper
pancaked into the ball mount of your tall truck.
What is this world but disasters, and I
a daily contributor? Then you said No harm done
on mine and tilted your head, outstretched your arms
diagonally and stepped closer. I didn’t recognize
the gesture until my chin met your shoulder.
Your gray hoodie smelled like dust kicked up by wind,
your hands gentler than when I clasp my own.
Marianne Kunkel
Marianne Kunkel is the author of Hillary, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) and The Laughing Game (Finishing Line Press), two anthologies, and poems that have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, The Notre Dame Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor of English at Johnson County Community College. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she was the managing editor of Prairie Schooner and the African Poetry Book Fund. She is the co-editor-in-chief of Kansas City Review. She loves writing poems and baking pies, and she posts images of both on Instagram at @asliceofpoetry.
