Moment
The girl with the sketchpad
is the lucky one here,
half-drowsy and cooled by handmade fans
in the shade behind the washed-out school,
her throat parched and pencil too tired
to keep its appointment with the page
but beguiled watching the sunken-necked man
in plaid shirt and overalls
who stands at an angle on one leg
and times the skinny boy around the track.
The boy tears around once
and his clothes race to catch him —
the shirt and shorts too big for his frame
billowing behind like sails —
but the blur of his limbs in motion
makes them nearly fill the gaping sleeves.
Passing the man, he breathes loud and staccato
and grins as he picks up speed,
eager as an actor auditioning
to play Prefontaine in the movies.
He will grow taller than the man —
the girl knows, her own brothers the model —
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but for now her eyes
ravish both of their shadows,
the boy’s sharp like a scythe
cutting brutishly across the corn
and the man’s extended, one lanky thumb
hung in his belt loop
while the other taps the stopwatch.
Does he know the splendor
of his form along the grass,
the silhouette that extends from his heels
like a conquered road, a trove of private majesties?
Here, now, the world sighs with him.
It was patience that won here, that set this field green,
this school towering to drink the sun.
When the boy heaves to a stop,
the man hugs him, tousles his hair.
Their arms slung over each other’s shoulders,
they blacken the red dirt as they leave.
both of them titans
through a trick of the light.
*First published in The First Thing Mastered (Tebot Bach, 2013)
Michael Miller is the co-founder of Moon Tide Press, the author of five books of poetry, and a former entertainment and community news journalist for the Los Angeles Times. He currently teaches English and coordinates the visiting-author program at St. Cyril of Jerusalem School in Encino, California. You may read more about him and visit his blog at www.michaelmillerpoet.com.
