the national poetry month issue || lost day
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
Lost DayAuthor(s): Elizabeth PowellSource: The North American Review, Vol. 287, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2002), p. 23Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25126749 .
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NAR
GARY DUEHR
Rewind
Angry words fly into mouths
from microphones, a kid who's flat on his back
drags two cops down the street,
a fist descends, 6c bombs retrace their tracks
into the bay of a B-52. Some youths
use cannisters to gather tear gas, 6c aim them
perfectly into the ends
of rifles. Flames get sucked from thatch
by Zippos, a Huey drops a cache
of bodies in a net, which hurriedly untangle, then
return to washing clothes 6c feeding pigs. Snare drum sticks
absorb their rattle, billy clubs heal
foreheads, napalm grafts skin, 6c Nixon, repentant, takes back
everything he said. You start to feel
trust 6c not suspicion, protesters grow younger 6c become
Eagle Scouts, ROTC recruits, 6c twisters at a senior prom.
VERN RUTSALA
Junk
Everyone loves the guys who bring the heat, fast and a little wild,
glowering before the high kick
and delivering one that puts
the batter's foot in the bucket
or, worse, makes him bail out.
But the one who throws junk, who has nothing at all on the ball,
seems un-American with his
nibbling subtlety, flicking that
slow stuff even Little Leaguers could smash as the ball sidles
toward the plate looking naked as an egg. Yet the best rarely
get a clean hit off him?the ball
dipping inside or out, wherever
they least expect it, nipping a corner or just above the letters.
If they do hit a pitch it meanders
down the third base line like
a bad bunt or pops up to short,
occasionally flutters lazily to left.
And the pitcher doesn't look
the part?big as a football player
but a little dumpy, belly bigger than it should be but with a schoolmaster's face, pursed lips
and glasses. Sometimes batters
try to bunt on him but he moves
off the mound cat-quick, scoops up
the ball and teases them by making them run it out before throwing
his only fastball of the day.
ELIZABETH POWELL
Lost Day
Can you evenly baste the sky, gather in the excess
fabric of stratosphere? Do you know how to smock?
Have you a thimble? Check and see
if it's in your little mending kit. No?
Don't despair, how about the scissors
and the thread? And the instruction book
and pattern?
Perhaps the concierge can help. But
maybe not. Soon
the night will fall out of this blue through the net that is holding up the sky 6c
clinging onto us.
The smell of your own hair, will you be able to remember it?
Where are your shoes?
Quickly now, the swatch of blue fades.
March-April 2002 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 23
This content downloaded from 195.34.79.158 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:19:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions