MUSCLE FAILURE

an unrhymed blues, an unformed villanelle

by Sadie Ducet

Image source: Black Agenda Report

Somewhere between his death and the time it took

for outrage to find my community we lost

an hour in the morning, gained an hour in the afternoon

so the sun hangs, belting a disbelieving blues.

I join the suburban ballet shuttling kids

between activities and lessons, between his death

and the time it took a young writer

to ask me How do you write about violence?

I don’t, I say. Not violence per se. Not about it.

If there’s violence seeping up out of the poem,

like night coming on, that’s called losing an hour

in the morning, gaining an hour after noon

in the slow descent. What I mean is,

let me tell you about the workouts at my gym:

between his death and the time it took,

it’s all resistance. We push and lift against ourselves

until we can’t go further, holding the pose,

suspended for an hour in the afternoon.

Teeth gritted til the count is done,

that’s where I’m at, sidled up

somewhere between his death and the time it takes.

Between his death and the time it takes.

Sadie Ducet's poems appear here and there, curated by Sarah Busse, who is one of two current Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin, and the co-editor of Verse Wisconsin.