Sport 36: Winter 2008
Brent Kininmont
Brent Kininmont
Sweet Talk
When the bumps get bigger
and the plane strikes more doubts,
the attendants don't smile and say
the Arctic below us
is the safest of oceans to land on;
that runways are stamped all over the ice
and torches outline them
when it gets dark;
that if forced onto a floe
the crew knows to use the wind and the rudder
to steer the floe home;
that in the worst outcome,
against all that white,
the wreckage will be easy to spot.
Trust is the best flotation device,
the attendants signal
six hours since Gatwick
when they pass round the basket
brimming with glacier mints.
To the Tadpoles
Paddies are crowded
with fastened lips, soon
you will hatch the plots.
Keep your own counsel
from the terraces;
talk up a downpour.
Repeat after me
We are the chorus!
We are the applause!
Hold on, what was that?
(To pause is knowing
when to make a splash.)
The mass is more than
a clearing of throats
surrounded by pines.
When distance is gapped
seek your selves in panes.
Give nothing away.
The Swimmer
Nitzi Phillips, d. 1989, Kibbutz Ga'lon
Another long day extending his arms
in orchards.
At the end of laps
he lies beneath
an old parachute
boiled up like a cloud,
his ceiling.
He pulls the cord,
shuts his eyes
a silk dome blossoms.
The lengths
a good swimmer goes to
to keep afloat.
He turns his head on the pillow
to breathe.
page 196What Boys Who Sleep Near Airports Know
Some propellers stutter
until they get the words right
Some don't stop roaring
until their motions are carried
Some drone on and on
about the nor' westers
Some whine like bandsaws
when they talk of revolutions
Some fling until sunrise
blade after blade after blade
Some whisk the dark into
spoonfuls the child can swallow
The Spot
It's not a tiny tick
on your lung, saying
maybe this one.
It has legs and means
to crawl over you.
They can't isolate it
like I can:
you, in the doorway
blocking my escape
from what you're saying;
a hole filled
with the length of you
confessing what you didn't know
had been going on
under your nose.
Framed
for not looking.
Self Timer
My mother drinks the medicine
but the warmth and her book
don't sink in.
The blanket's in the car.
When my father reaches
the top of the steps
she counts back to the shore
where another couple
are adjusting.
Time is running out
and they're trying to fit
the lake in.