6.04 / April 2011

Two Poems

Ross White

EXPERT ADVICE FOR YOUR BOXING CAREER

In a parallel space, you and I are boxing, ring spattered with last night’s blood, the wreck of our loved ones. In a gym miles wide, clusters of rings: showcases for the pugilism that infects us, the maniac gene, our heads tilted downward, your hazel eyes fixed on forward plane. Why the sport of hurt remains: what is beautiful must be beaten beautiful.


PISTACHIO

Like any good husband, it is first wedded to itself, a yoked pericardium, great listener in the orchard.  The pistachio feels no wretchedness remembering life as a caterpillar, only the dull, hibernal happiness of the chrysalis.  If one were to whisper the cheerless truth, it would express bewilderment at its lot.  But nothing protecting willingly surrenders its treasures: mollusk and pearl, the Hecatonchires guard the gates of Tartarus, mother will maul whatever disturbs the cub.  No good husband imagines that he will finally burst, or that when he does, young lovers strolling through his orchard might hear him and think it a good omen.

Ross White is the editor of Inch, a magazine of short poetry and microfiction, and the publisher of Bull City Press (http://bullcitypress.com). His work has appeared on Poetry Daily and in The Collagist, Carolina Quarterly, and New England Review, among others. Ross is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also works in the School of Education.