Negative Capability Press Poetry Blog

4

a new poem for my verse novel

his name was tartt
he was from our hometown
but i didn't know him there
i only knew him at the lake
his parents' cabin was near ours
and the fact that he was
hardly ever there
only added to his legend

he was older than we were
i'm sure he was a popular guy
in high school and to us
he was a hero almost a god
a face chiseled from sylacauga marble
tanned by the sands of time
and framed by a pseudo-fro
of black coffee curls
even his post-acne pockmarks
added a rugged manly charm
with all of this atop
a muscular body
that must have made all
the girls back home swoon

but we didn't care about any of that
his looks just made him
that much cooler to us
our version of the ideal man
what we wanted to become
but his skiing is what
made us idolize him

while we would drag along
behind an old green deck boat
like barney fife stumbling
awkwardly across sheets of ice
tartt danced elegantly
behind his flashy ski nautique
cutting a symmetrical slice of spray
as he slalomed back and forth
across the wake
a sublime manifestation
of human possibility
what we could aspire to
but never hope to reach

3

some years later
when drew reached his prime
he was by far the best skier in our crew
but he was never able to
surpass tartt's skiing ability
so even with the benefit that
death and time bring to one's legacy
like with mlk or obi-wan
he has also never surpassed tartt's legend