Tuesday, July 23, 2013

MUSCLE FAILURE

an unrhymed blues, an unformed villanelle
by Sadie Ducet


Image source: Black Agenda Report


Somewhere between his death and the time it took
for outrage to find my community we lost
an hour in the morning, gained an hour in the afternoon

so the sun hangs, belting a disbelieving blues.
I join the suburban ballet shuttling kids
between activities and lessons, between his death

and the time it took a young writer
to ask me How do you write about violence?
I don’t, I say. Not violence per se. Not about it.

If there’s violence seeping up out of the poem,
like night coming on, that’s called losing an hour
in the morning, gaining an hour after noon

in the slow descent. What I mean is,
let me tell you about the workouts at my gym:
between his death and the time it took,

it’s all resistance. We push and lift against ourselves
until we can’t go further, holding the pose,
suspended for an hour in the afternoon.

Teeth gritted til the count is done,
that’s where I’m at, sidled up
somewhere between his death and the time it takes.
Between his death and the time it takes.


Sadie Ducet's poems appear here and there, curated by Sarah Busse, who is one of two current Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin, and the co-editor of Verse Wisconsin.