The
Weigh-In
They take turns stepping on
the scale in their underwear. They sweat, spit, starve,
dehydrate themselves. They shit and piss to make weight. Their
hair buzzed,
their fingernails clipped, the scale clatters as each
wrestler steps on, steps off.
They slip into their singlets, thumb the straps over their shoulders; their
dicks
press
silhouettes into the glossy polyester-spandex blend––the necessary moments of silence
before each match: lacing shoes, adjusting headgear,
removing jewelry.
The girls in the bleachers
with their hair in up-dos and fat curls,
wear miniskirts and heels; they’ve starved, worked out,
eaten sugar and salads,
forced fingers down their throats to fit into last year’s
skirt size.
They snap their gum in the
darkened gym as the toughest boys in school
circle the edge of the mat: the Cromwell brothers, the Meriwethers, the Gutches,
and the Holzhouser twins.
These girls have come to witness the miracle
of their own weight: how they can cramping, hungry, and
in heels weigh fifty,
sixty, and seventy pounds lighter than these boys and
still take them down
with a single leg––forcing these boys to sprawl
in the backseats of their own Chevys,
behind bleachers, in a wheat field.
A half-nelson gets slipped
on, wiped off. The boys on their backs
bridge in a near-fall, become dead weight after a pin.
What
They Don’t Tell You
They say it’s
eighty percent preparation
and twenty percent presentation,
that it’s a sink or swim kind of job.
What they don’t tell you is
that on Monday
you’ll play racquetball,
you’ll come home and cook
and you’ll keep on cooking
‘cause
you’re lonely.
You’ll read,
prep for class,
grade papers.
You’ll be in bed by
midnight.
They say that you’re not
there to be liked
and to just step back and teach.
What they don’t tell you is
that on Tuesday
you’ll stir fry shiitakes and bok
choy for breakfast,
you’ll throw in a handful of garlic,
you’ll dice tofu.
They tell you to be tough
from the beginning,
that getting harder later is a mistake.
But what they don’t tell you
is that on Wednesday,
you’ll drive to the third level of the parking garage,
take the stairs to the cobblestones,
pass Johnny B’s Cafe
and enter your classroom
without having said a word
to anyone all morning.
I tell my students writing
an essay
is like robbing a bank––
forty percent is research,
mapping out the bank,
assessing your audience,
outlining your plan of attack.
I tell them twenty percent
of the essay is the actual heist,
the drafting,
to not stop and re-think,
to not get it right but get it written.
They tell you not to
calculate how much you make an hour.
What they don’t tell you is
that on Thursday,
you’ll grip the racquet lower on the handle,
you’ll pinch the ball,
you’ll get a rollout,
you’ll Z serve to the corners of the court.
I tell my students the last
forty percent
is the getaway––
to keep it clean,
to not leave anything behind that doesn’t need to be
there
and to get out quick.
They tell you not to leave
your xeroxing for the last minute,
to not get behind on your grading;
they tell you
to not get romantically involved with the students.
What they don’t tell you
is that on Friday
you’ll go out to dinner,
you’ll drink red wine,
she’ll talk about movies,
you’ll talk about teaching,
you’ll fall in love with her sadness.
Some say the best part of
teaching
is June,
July,
and August.
What they don’t tell you
until you’ve already discovered it for yourself
is that the hardest part of teaching
is not revealing
the fraud that you are.
On
This Side of Envy
Midafternoon
and they're scribbling poems
and pictures
on coasters
carelessly
kissing the afternoon away.
He’s young and smoking,
knows how to order,
knows what to drink,
knows how to drink it.
She’s younger,
sexy,
loud,
and barely on her barstool.
A rectangle of afternoon
light fades the jukebox.
The shutters cast pinstripes
across the pool table.
Someone wins off a
scratch-it,
buys the bar a round,
while over our shoulders we can’t help but recognize
how easy love once was.
We wonder if our faces were
ever that smooth,
our hair that thick and shiny.
We’re reminded of when our
breath
was thinner, candy coated.
We second-guess ourselves
believing
our own love could have worked out––
how could it not
if it ever looked like that?
We shift in our seats,
straining
to hear a code of words
that could make love last,
but there is only the TV
and the ping,
chime,
and clatter of the poker machines.
When the youngsters leave,
veins of smoke close in
on their sugary trail of perfume,
and in the window
they pass by
three times
laughing
and looking for their car.