Three poems from WHAT TRAVELS WITH US: POEMS by Darnell Arnoult

OUTRAGEOUS LOVE

How long
did I wait for
him to come love me? Lord!
I was starving!  But hard as his
heart was

it was
food to me.  Why
I had to bite my way
to that poor blinded and bleeding
thing. A

demon
I was.  Must have
smelled the blood.  On some nights
between cold sheets and closed eyes I’d
feel the

dark soft
ringlets, as if
his head already lay
on that pillow there waiting for
my love

to touch.
I’d feel that man’s
skin beneath my hands, his
curls sliding between my fingers.
My hands

traveling
his neck, his chest,
his belly.  Trace and taste
sweet bites of ribs, of tender thigh,
morsel

of neck
meat.  Must have cast
a mighty spell on him
gobbling him up like that in dreams.
He came 

to me
on a Sunday.
The mountains moved closer.
I heard a whippoorwill at noon.
He knocked. 

I knew
it was him and
there he stood.  Said he was
eaten up by melancholy.
Eaten

by a
sorrow.  Me on
his mind all the time.  He
didn’t show his heart to any
body. 

Truly
I have married
meat and bread.  As sure as
this banquet passes my lips, love
is food.

IMMERSION

While my trousers cling wet and heavy as past sins,
women in hats stand on the bank and pray.
Half-bodies of men in white shirts bob on the river.
Their glazed foreheads glisten in God’s own sun.

Women in hats stand on the bank and pray,
singing in disjointed chorus, Praise Jesus.  Hallelujah.
Their glazed foreheads glisten in God’s own sun.
Heads fall back calling, God in Heaven cleanse this man. 

Singing in disjointed chorus, Praise Jesus.  Hallelujah.
Wash away his iniquity and cleanse him.  Hallelujah.
Heads fall back calling, God in Heaven cleanse this man.
Icy fingers clamped over my face push me down into the depths.

Wash away his iniquity and cleanse him.  Hallelujah.
Cleanse and sanctify, Jesus, in this holy water, God.
Icy fingers clamped over my face push me down into the depths.
They call on God and the river to wash me in the blood of the Lamb.

Cleanse and sanctify, Jesus, in this holy water, God.
Half-bodies of men in white shirts bob on the river.
They call on God and the river to wash me in the blood of the Lamb,
while my trousers cling wet and heavy as past sins.

LEARNING STRATEGY AT ENGLISH FIELD

C.P.’s Outlaws versus the Martinsville Oilers.
Hot dogs and popcorn fill Friday night air
along with moths that flutter and flirt
with danger in the field lights.
Mothers ask questions of fathers
who talk to each other.
Their deep gravelly voices face the playing field— 
they judge ball speed, weigh batting stance,
third baseman’s charge, pitcher’s windup, the balk,
short’s scoop and fire to first.
They call for double plays, measure the power
of the catcher’s legs, how fast  his mask comes off.
Weaver, policeman, sander, insurance man,
mailman, doctor, lawyer, teacher,
foreman, yardman, fixer, preacher.
Their sons are scattered across a diamond
cupped in advertisements for WMVA, STP,
Blacky’s Texaco, First Baptist Church, Red Man
Chew, Dixie Pig Pit-Cooked Bar-B-Q.
A fastball smacks the glove on third
then rockets to first—policeman to preacher.
A mother jumps on the concrete bleacher.
Claps and fidgets and does a hip walk in her seat.
She prays for a third out.

I am a girlfriend.  A cheerleader.  A rising senior.
I think I am listening and watching
to learn the game of baseball.  If not for my boyfriend,
I would have no interest in the game.
An initiate spectator, I have not grasped
the mental energy of baseball:
telepathy between pitcher and catcher,
tension between the batter and pitcher,
pitcher and basemen, basemen and runner,
stealer and pitcher, catcher and batter.
A-wing batter! Swing!
I only faintly appreciate the music of a hard ball
kissing the sweet spot of a wooden bat,
the dance of a runner in a pickle,
the warrior scrimmage as the third-base runner
goes for the steal and the catcher defends home.
I foolishly think I am learning baseball:
pass balls on third strikes, pop flies, fielder’s choice,
fastballs, curveballs, spitballs, greaseballs,
high balls, low balls, inside, outside, bunts,
line drives, foul tips, steals, the sacrifice—
sacrifice fly, sacrifice bunt, sacrifice play on the runner.
So many sacrifices.
My boyfriend’s mother shares her popcorn.
I clap when she claps.  Yell when she yells.
Fidget when she fidgets.  Smile when she smiles.
I watch her son, the third baseman.
He rests between batters, his right hip
shoved out to be a resting place
for the back of his gloved hand.
He spits absently and watches the pitcher approach the rubber.
He is cocky.  He’s also cute and a good kisser.
I forgive his arrogance for love.  For his sake
I watch and learn and get my mind
around what I can in the little time I have left.
Come August he’ll say no to college baseball.
I’ll turn in my pompoms a year early.
I’ll work half-days and he’ll join the Marines.
The Cards will play the Braves in a three-game series.
Our honeymoon nights will be spent in Atlanta Stadium.
Our honeymoon days will be spent dodging rhino
in his parents’ Galaxy 500 at Lion Country Safari
and riding the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia—
a preview of things to come.
I will throw up whatever I eat.  I will lose before I gain.
By May I’ll be a mother finishing senior English
and he’ll make Lance Corporal and move us to Lejeune.
Our old paths will be unrecoverable
except through our son and daughter.

Fourteen years later, I shift my attention
from the memory of a third baseman
to the shortstop-gone-catcher
who, in the hesitation of play,
pushes out his right hip to make a resting place
for the back of his gloved hand.
He spits absently and pulls his mask over his face.
A girl somewhere in the stands
writes his name over and over in her notebook.
He squats as the pitcher addresses the rubber.
I am out of my seat as he pops up.
Out of his crouch, he flings off his mask,
backs up first.
Other players’ fathers nod to me,
acknowledge a job well done.
Unlike the catcher’s grandmother, I am forced out
of my element.  I bridge the distance
between fidgeting mothers and voyeuristic fathers.
I am chastised by the blind tournament umpire,
my ex-mother-in-law in it right alongside me.
She shares her popcorn, watches and judges
her grandson—and me.  Conspires in my strategy.
I am here, in the bleachers, willing a win
across distance only a mother can fathom.

*These three poems were published in the collection What Travels With Us: Poems, LSU Press, 2005.