Carnival Glass
Rainbow-glazed light
On punch cups,
Someone painted an
Oil-slick up to my knuckles.
Who mixed waste-space
Into the slip,
Poured the extra effort
In with the cement and
Fired it?
Someone we know did,
He probably has a beard.
Earthenware is just the
Cooler shade of glass,
And opacity is more honest
Than that underwater wavy mess
Anyway.
He finds the clumps and bubbles
Charming, he thinks
There’s something pristine
In how no machine has touched it,
I quietly wish I could have
Everything,
All the colors in every shape like the
Cups seem to have.
Focus on a Non-Moving Point
There is no way to stop here,
No spot to stand
Without falling forward or lurching back,
Being tugged that way, or pushed this.
Haven’t stopped running since I was a contented fetus.
These days, I could, though—
I would sit down on
My pink-and-orange-striped blanket,
And pull the emergency brake on my whole universe.
I’d just need someone to stop there with me.
Nothing—
Brilliantly nothing,
Save you and me and the sun.
The agile dancer who teaches my yoga class
Fits herself into improbable poses—
To practice balance, she says.
I skeptically attempt the strange stance.
When I fall out, she advises me:
“Focus on a non-moving point.”
As I try One-Handed Tiger once again,
I mumble
“That’s the key—
But first show me something
That isn’t."
Laura Tabor enjoys running and dancing and sleep-talking, usually in or around Cincinnati, Ohio. She writes the teaching and writing blog The Flying Writer.