6/5/2026
Brian Eckert
After 3 months in Little Rock
I’m reborn and free to leave
finally cured of cancer
after my 3rd miserable bout
I’m undefeated against the Alien
and they claim it won’t come back
I stop to visit Frank Stanford’s grave
46 years and two days dead
buried south of the highway
in the shadow of his high school—
that out of place Catholic Monastery
It wasn’t a dream, it was a flood
I cross the Arkansas R. 3 times
just to blow out my tire
at the base of the Ozarks
with no cell service
and no good ol’ boys stop
to help me change the flat
I bike back to town in the rain
to call every tow service
in the greater Clarksville area
staying dry under the canopy
of a cemetery with Civil War vets
and [probably] several copperheads
I bike back up the mountain
in the now pouring rain
to wait in my car next to a creek
that I still can’t play in
I finish reading The Iliad
out of the wind and the rain
I haven’t eaten yet today,
and I’m dehydrated,
but I’m reborn and
cancer free—and
I’ll be home tonight,
eventually
‡‡
BRIAN ECKERT is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He has been a bartender, farm hand, fry cook, landscaper, and substitute teacher. Brian was born and raised in rural Indiana before attending Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2019, Brian was diagnosed with leukemia and spent several years undergoing intensive chemotherapy treatments, while also completing undergrad, and then starting and finishing a Master’s of Liberal Arts degree at Johns Hopkins University in May of 2022. He lives in Fayetteville and enjoys driving through the mountains and visiting every used bookstore.
