Keepers (9)

By: Stephanie Burt
July 28, 2016

One in a series republishing 10 poems — about everyday objects and pop culture avatars — by HiLobrow friend and contributor Steph Burt.

TALE

for the Sacramento Monarchs

Giant herself, the intrepid
heroine will slay the ogre if
I think so: I know it, as certainly as
we teach a pen, a chair — oh, even
a roof or a freeway — to follow instructional
lines

of gravity, their transparent, never-to-be-
      crossed
strata making parts of the land
      comprehensible
amid smoggy confusion. It works even if
      you don’t
care: a law — sonorous in
its intangible push and pull — just says

that charisma, while heady, may awe (walk
      or run with it as
you like) the inattentive, but won’t
make the beanstalk grow thicker or faster,
      nor break
the life-threatening hedge of thorns that
      flare like
sparks around hostage beauty. Our heroine
      needs

one homophonic (Oulipo will
offer examples) complement of bright
and well-maintained, if not indeed shining,
armor,
rinsed, like Achilles’, in a special sea,
new tonics for courageous grownups
coursing

over its monarchical breastplate and
      greaves:
thus emboldened, she will go on to stand
and fight for her too-sunny, agricultural
      realm,
where fire signals from each hillcrest, in
      hay needy teens
have secretly gathered, give warning
      enough to defend

each village against all marauders,
imagined and real.

Reprinted from the chapbook Shot Clocks (Harry Tankoos Books, 2005).

***

ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES

STEPH BURT at HILOBROW: KEEPERS (10 poems) | GENO (EPIC WINS series) | NO KILL I (KIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM series) | ENTANGLEMENT (HERMENAUTIC TAROT series) | HAPPY BIRTHDAY (QUIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM series).

Keepers (9)

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