- Rope
Mrs. Alberta Cox
As if two girls were starting a fire On all sides of my daughter, She is set ablaze: the girls swing Two clotheslines between them As if they were goddesses Holding two country roads Leading to each other; neighbors Surround her syncopated dance As her seizure of heat begins To flicker on the moonlit sidewalk— Now, the ropes are white hot— Her hair ignites in the upswing; her barrettes, Like petrified butterflies, click on the off beat; Her knees pump like she's walking on red coals; Her arms flail as if she's calling the rain To put her out; she jumps, she flirts With the flame: she jumps backwards And then turns forward, Rocking in and out of the light, Her hands testify around her head Or pose on yet-to-be hips, till Her fire snuffs out as a wind blows cold, A car with flashing lights Slows past, and the braids of our summer night Surrender to gravity.
A. Van Jordan is author of two books of poems, Rise (winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award) and M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A (to be published in 2004 by Norton). This Ohio native teaches at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.