She stretches and shakes off the sleep
that has held her today until
mid-morning. This is not the way
life should have happened, she thinks,
her window a picture of new snow.
Maybe somewhere there was someone
who might have made a difference,
but if there was she never met her
or if she did she didn’t think
so then, declaring the frightened love.
If the weather weren’t so bad, she
might drive over to Baxter Bridge—
there was something in the souvenir shop
she might get her mother for Christmas
and the owner there seemed comfortable.
If she didn’t exist, someone
would have to make her up; she laughs
at being so ordinary that
a director couldn’t use her even
in the crowd scene of a 50’s plot.
Whatever it was that made life
interesting, she would like to know.
She guessed she’d trim the tree today;
and tomorrow, if the roads cleared,
buy a bottle (why not) of expensive wine.
Turkey-Shoot Champion
As if notice counts, your picture
in some journal nobody
reads or everybody reads:
the marbles played for and won.
It’s part of the package, pretense,
jealousy, acting what
has been played better
to few who know the difference.
If not always, take the tired man
with the long gun on his cabin
porch, turkey-shoot champion,
now a book with brown pages.
Not better to have been the loser,
not worse, a leaf one day turned,
passage dropped, seeing
in the stream of words a white stone.
The necessary blank to round it out,
for the old, the stroke, for the young,
not all blind, the happy union
of luck and youth, the urgent hope.
If not always, take the tired man
with the long gun on his cabin
porch, turkey-shoot champion,
now a book with brown pages.
Not better to have been the loser,
not worse, a leaf one day turned,
passage dropped, seeing
in the stream of words a white stone.
The necessary blank to round it out,
for the old, the stroke, for the young,
not all blind, the happy union
of luck and youth, the urgent hope.
Trent Busch lives in Georgia where he writes and makes furniture. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New England Review, North American Review, Poetry, Southern Review, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.