Friday, August 17, 2012

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT WATCHES FIELD HOCKEY




She loves the spittle and uneven grass of hockey on the mall the same way
she loves the curling clouds lapping around her neck, as the heat dips 
orange and crimson, and for a moment, she watches us:
how swampy our shirt-necks must feel and how boring it must be,
that we rarely think about the shadow lengthening across our field,
rifling passes to each other over the uneven grass. 

They only play in that spectacular sliver of evening, she says,
the moment that knows how it feels to look up at me, in a passing way,

and say: I've forgotten how beautiful living feels
and how incredible it is to sweat
under that shifting shadow, like the Egyptian must have,
forgetting how unique and monstrous
that pyramid was, as he took his stick in his hands and used it
to strike a round rock with all the precision
his eternal soul could muster.





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