Poem 48: Still Life With Tennis Trophy

Sometimes, the burnish against the wood paneling
suggests a rustic cabin, when sitting on the ground,
helping put on boots, looking up. There is the bookshelf,
a cookbook for poor poets. Turkey feathers
in a glass vase, my grandmother's candelabra.
Once, we pulled a table by the stove and ate
potatoes by candlelight. The mantle clock, stopped
at 11:10, with a newspaper clipping taped beside.
I won the trophy in doubles, defeating my dad.
The pedestal is shiny and green. The mantle
is painted brick red, the glove rests
on the ash can, black like we saw in Columbus
in an art museum without labels, in a corridor
bookstore, in a glass stein restaurant.
Sometimes the freesia dries and droops,
Sometimes we force the forsythia.
Perhaps we should add a jar of sparkling
Cider, a fire in the stove. We'll burn old
essays, we'll consider the crushed brick
they top dress tennis courts with.
I think it's biere de garde, with the woman
on the front, liberty always has bared breasts.
A court in Versailles, which David painted:
the men all salute, while light pours in from above.
In Boston, where America and France
muralled together there's a gold dome, and
bronze ducks. March days there, too.
Wool socks hang on the gate. The ballet
trophy is in first position, my daughter
was so proud, she wanted ours together.
Some days it's hard to get her boots on,
some days it's hard to get out the door.