Saturday, March 29, 2014

Poem: Lip


Lip

Meriwether fences, a taste of
neverbeen to lighten the step.
Jumping horse, pole vault, footstool.

Sad-eyed semaphore in the eye of
the maelstrom. She calls for help,
but never when help can be given.

So much timing swept over the
falls, this antic come-and-go,
inches from the payoff.

Once, a blade of grass that held firm.

A winning putt.
Corporate blimps, television cameras,
men whispering into microphones.

A man in white swings the
pendulum, leftward parabola,
a line he drew in his head.
Smiles.
The blade sees it coming,
white planet, perfectly cratered,
reaches for his cellulose center and
makes himself big.

To the whispering men,
it seems that the ball has
met with an invisible field,
trick of magnetics, dangling on the
edge like a woman about to say yes.

The smile disappears.
The crowd exhales.
The engraver pauses.

Ernesto finishes his coffee,
picks out his finest clippers,
leaves a set of dewborne
prints across the green.
Leaning over the cup, he finds a
chlorophyll cowlick stabbing the white.
Smiles.

Slides it into his wallet.
Has it bronzed, places it on his
mantel, next to the pebble from ’79.



From the collection Fields of Satchmo

Photo by MJV

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