Title: Sport 41: 2013

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2014, Wellington

Part of: Sport

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Sport 41: 2013

Anna Jackson

page 119

Anna Jackson

A sonnet about teepees

The challenge is to write about teepees, and also write in sonnet form. Okay, I’ll start constructing lines in which to say a sonnet’s worth of reasons for why these (teepees) are just the height and shape to ease themselves into the fourteen lines (octave and sestet) of the Petrarchan form; firstly, I think they are octagonal. Oh please let’s say they are, and pause and praise their spacious floors, before we move on swiftly to the rise and tautness of their angled walls that narrow rapidly into a gracious opening so unlike the way a roof concludes a house. Um,well, I think that’s all.

Teepee

For a teepee is in sonnet form
for it has eight sides
for it faces the sun rising in the east
and it faces the sun hitting the top of the pine
and it faces the sun meeting the mountain’s peak
and it faces the sun in the larch grove
and it faces the sun in the west
and so on.

But the eighth side is not a side
but a door. And I lie
on the spacious floor
of my teepee
and gaze out.
Only, there is no out.

page 120

A sonnet about a giraffe

I think you need to paint a bit of blue between the legs. For there is blue beyond the legs, and blue beyond the body, and there’s blue beyond the head, and there is blue beyond the blue eyes, softly gazing out. Only, there is no out. No on beyond the eyes, or eye-lashes, no on beyond the head, the neck, the back, the legs, the spots. You cannot take away the head, the neck, you cannot take away the legs, the spots, you cannot take away an eyelash, not a single one, and not the single back, and not the bit of blue between the legs because there is no bit of blue between the legs.

Giraffe

I think you need to paint a little bit of blue between the legs.
There is blue beyond the legs.
There is blue beyond the body.
There is blue beyond the head, and blue
beyond the beautiful eyes,
gazing out.
Only, there is no out.

It takes with it the eyelashes.
It takes with it the spots.
It takes with it the neck
and the body
and the legs,
but not the little bit of blue between the legs
because there is no little bit of blue between the legs.

page 121

A sonnet about takeaways

Remove the day spent in the sand, remove the sunburned patch, remove the stubborn knot at the back of the hair, remove the hair you leave behind each time you wash away your trove of sand and sunburnt skin into my bath, remove the beating of the batter for a cake we will not bake, untread the path of footsteps wet and unendearing, or veer, if you prefer, to where I’ll meet you on my sofa, greet you with my fork of mushroom, bend with the remover to remove. Please meet my rice, my peas, my plate! This sonnet version really is a lark! And all it needs to rhyme with to, is you.

Takeaways

Take away the day spent in the sand
and the sunburnt patch,
take away the stubborn knot
at the back of the hair
and the hair in the bottom of the shower stall,
take away the beating of the batter
and the baking of the cake.

Meet me on the sofa and greet
my mushroom with your fork,
my oyster sauce,
my rice, my peas,
my plate.
What about take away the takeaways?
And the waiting is over!