For the Boy Who Died
of Acute Dilation of
the Heart
Even now, when I pray for
solid ground,
this is what I see. And the rest
is mystery…
Betsy Sholl
“Solid Ground”
He’d
want all the old news
papers, mostly
sports, and they’d be saved,
clipped
(with, I bet, his mother’s packing
scissors)
and kept in an old book,
a
catalogue he’d salted away… and too that
thin skin on the bottoms of school glue
bottles,
his teacher saying
sure
use what’s left but wash out the jars
—bring
them back
in
the fall—
Don’t
you think he’d’ve wanted to see
how
Jesse Owens screeched
to
total gold in 100 and 200m? That he’d’ve
talked
for days about it? And I bet he’ve
liked
Zamperini the best, a come up
from
nothing bum they say with that long
long
run and he wouldn’t have cared
if
he didn’t win, wouldn’t have
cared at all—he’d’ve
pasted the name
on
it’s own page, licked his lips,
washed
out that jar and almost walked
to
the door, but really already at a run…
No comments:
Post a Comment