Thursday, January 07, 2010

Series:

On Games We Once Played

Jacks

Take me out to the point of failure—
where picking up twelve
is my whole ambition, because you,
my friend, have missed one.

Follow the bouncing ball
one, two, three times in a row
thrown high for extra lift
thrown wide to miss the pile.

Give me a concrete floor
wiped by blackened hands
and the sound of a hundred
tiny teeth ringing in my ear.

Hunched over,
youthful backs
pray for hours
for time to stand still.

*

Hangman

My brother chooses names
he doesn’t think I know:

Mongoose- eight dashes below
the hangman’s noose.

I never did like violence.
I get a head first, then a body,

one arm, then I see three ‘o’s’
and an N for my name.

‘-on-oo--.’ If only I had a ‘g’
I wouldn’t die.

I squeal. He adds feet,
starts to hint with flying arms.

I wonder if he would have added toes,
just to keep me in the car a little longer.

*

Skipping Stones

It begins with a search by water’s edge
for something palmable, pocket-sized
handshakes smoothed by time. A pursuit,
when done alone, that has a way of bending
sorrow inward. With a friend, it pokes
fun at almost any kind of day.

The object is to waste time, to put all your
seconds in a row and spin them out beyond
the undulating brim. Then count the fractal
spaces: one-two-three-four, splitting
the distance between now and then.

The object is to bring the edge of the horizon
closer, to etch steps into the valley’s ridge
where we can never go. The rings
are calling cards, a way for us to intersect
and to forget.