18 August 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 2
Poem with Intrinsic Music
Empty tennis courts of autumn,
the landscape wants to appropriate you
like fallow cortex, the brain over-
turning itself—a blind woman has no use
for sports, but the cells could go
to memorizing Bach: the cello suites,
the overtures. This one's like tipping
your head back to take in the sky gone
shallow, dimensionless—shot
with no timestamp, the rule of threes.
Seesaw, seesaw. One is like dust.
Cricket legs/wings. Another: approaching
the treeline to find they're not far
away, just very small trees.
About the author:
Elisa Gabbert's recent work can be found in Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Eleven Eleven, Meridian, Pleiades, Washington Square, and other journals. She is the author of two chapbooks from Kitchen Press, Thanks for Sending the Engine (2007) and My Fear of X (forthcoming). She is also co-author, with Kathleen Rooney, of Something Really Wonderful (dancing girl press, 2007) and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths Books, 2008).
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Elisa Gabbert at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 2, where "Poem with Intrinsic Music" ran on August 18, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
