To understand soccer, for me,
is to write a team of metaphors –
each thing must be another.
Churning legs are furious right angles,
passing sequences are a series of triangles,
and each shot is a ray or an arc.
The players can’t even be themselves:
Messi is young Liam Neeson;
Bjarnasson is small Thor;
Finnbogasson has my boyfriend’s cheekbones.
In this way, the game becomes mine,
the win or lose my pulse,
the field an Eden
where I’ve named all the animals.
In Mobile there are apples,
Entire wheelbarrows filled
With countless apples,
Globes and spheres,
Crimson and heavy
Fortified with a core
With mahogany seeds.
Pick a caramel-coating, a candy-coating.
Take two home to savor
During the next frigid night.
Twice-heated hot dogs,
Stiff pink cotton candy,
Over-popped popcorn
Dripping with butter substitute
Every kernel bearing a sprinkling
Of table salt or celery salt
To toss like wrappers
Underneath the boots of
Apple-chompin’, Ferris Wheel-lovin’ folks
countin’ “one, two, three, four” in the square.
Appearance meant everything.
She dressed her children in exquisite outfits,
ironed and edited her husband’s clothes.
She knew how to make us look attractive.
Her feet hurt from wearing
shoes a half-size too small.
She made me cautious in my clothes,
wary about grass and ink and food stains.
Concerned with style to the end,
she requested a closed casket for her funeral.
So when we selected
her final change of costume,
I chose the most comfortable ensemble
for her to wear into the great beyond:
wool socks to keep her feet warm,
her worn cotton shirt and soft sweats.
Flo, her caretaker, and I were pragmatists.
“What good are fine garments now?”
we asked ourselves. Since then, I’ve wondered,
“Did I betray my mother’s fashion sense?”
Was I celebrating her release from suffering
and dressing her for a zone of comfort?
Or was this my redress for deferring to elegance,
a model forced to cut a beautiful figure?
Our priest suggested that we’ll never know.
and it is delirious
the ruby orange jewelweed
fills in the wet woods, loosely
guarded by a mess of redstarts
gaily flashing in the trees.
waxwings drunk on fermented
berries are mechanical pulleys;
they hang freely and swing
between abstract extremes.
from out the lush wingstem,
a golden frog with golden eyes
is my sweet surprise.
i let go my designs. my heart
is pendulous, as silver spotted
skippers land on American
bellflowers which somehow
last the heat.
Traveller Leopold said he should go otherwhither
And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught
He took the cup that stood tofore him for him never needed none asking
Let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be drunken
For they were right witty scholars. Sir Leopold which never durst laugh too open
Young Stephen filled all the cups that stood empty hereupon Punch Costello
Banged with his fist upon the board and would sing a bawdy catch
To bed, to bed was the burden of it to be played
Look forth, my people, upon the land of behest
We wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die:
Over us dead they bend.
body of too loud, too quiet
body of salt-bones
and sweet meat flesh
of prolific predicitons
and the sound of bells
Woman is cactus apple gone cardinal
Woman is wrapped in demin and scar tissue
i am a shape of thoughts-manifested
the meeting of sound and color
a collection of secrets and hot water
It was only the day before
I’d gotten my car serviced
so I knew everything was fine
but today driving in a downpour,
the car loses power and slows
to a stop before I can pull over.
The driver behind me must think
I’m crazy suddenly stopping
in the middle of the road.
The car pulls around me
and turns onto a street ahead
and then as I’m calling for help,
I see the driver in a hooded
yellow slicker walking back
to me in the driving rain.
As she approaches, I can see
it’s an African American woman
with a Kroger name tag.
I don’t recognize her but maybe
she’s a cashier or works in the deli.
As I open the door, her face filled
with concern–Honey, are you ok?
I assure her I’m fine, it’s just my car
that died. She heads back to her car
a half block away, rain pelting
her hood and I imagine on to Kroger
to clock in.
I’ve told this story countless times,
so many times it’s become the stuff
of legend, though in truth it really happened.
I would tell how stunned I was by this act of selfless
kindness from a woman whose people
have suffered unceasing cruelty.
I would say how changed I was
by this event. Transformed.
And I wish I could tell
you it’s true but just last Sunday
on the way to church, I pulled around
a stranded car since I had a destination
on my mind.
And even now I speed through Kroger
preoccupied with the next thing.
I wonder if my rescuer recognizes me
as I hurry out the door.
i.
Beast begotten, barely awake or recognizable,
I begin.
I’ve held lavish nightmares as easy excuses,
For as long as I’ve held my breath.
Bit my tongue, bid my time,
Bloodmouthed and blacklunged and silent.
Belied by the quiet, while I wait to flourish.
ii.
I’ve been a lovingly lost,
Poorly rooted devil of a boy,
Lace layered tightly between my marigold bones,
All witchbred and lovesick.
I have pulled wormwood from gravebed,
Stripped bark to read.
I have carved lovely promises,
From treated birch.
I have beckoned melody,
From willow lungs.
I am fluent in the language of fallen trees,
And i will vow with no tongues less precious, if you let me.
All dogwood blooming, like new inks and dyes.
With their blind eyes
how does the seed
wait and listen
the memory of
a glowing pool of pure light
an answer to a great longing
There is a holiness
chords way down in my being
one great cone filled with
a joyfulness that catches you up
to give vibration
a surging through
Yet I am afraid
the sky is dark and wild
~ Cento of lines taken from Hundreds and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr, p. 23, 26, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 42
Before the blazing
blue of summer sky,
your raucous calls and
feathered foolery,
your trickster moves
and flashing splendory,
catch even my eye.
May she beware your
silver-throated songs,
your prowess dance
of masculinity.
May she discover
creative power,
and a courageous flight plan
of her own,
discover self-reliance, heart
and mind,
before she settles for your nest
to call her home.
