Anne Tibbitts writes

A Coldsky Day in April: Looking at a Quonset Hut House While Walking to Camp Wonju, South Korea

Oh, tonight oughta be spent in patchwork

While chicken and dumplings boil slow.

It oughta be colored by firelight,

Warmed by homemade wine and crocheted slippers.

This is a snowfall kind of wet winter night

Anticipation hung in the sky so heavy

It might almost fall, almost snow but

Not cold enough to form the flakes.

You can linger in the glow of half-burned

Logs, watch the light in someone else’s eyes.

This is a snowfall kind of wet winter night

Almost snow but sky not cold enough to form flakes. 

 

 Quonset -- Tim Nyberg

Anne Tibbitts writes

Poem for Toby, who lost a football scholarship and joined the Marines

You feel football in your heart like heavy lead

That keeps you from flying down a field of green and mud

Your cleats grinding up clumps of old grass

Your number racing toward some goal

Get the ball     get the ball

Your mind yells inside yer head BAM yer hit   yer down

A thousand stars ring around your eyes

You lie there unmoving, yer dead, this time you are really dead

You raise up and run toward the other guy BAM down again

This time with the ball tucked

Like an old teddy bear inside your big hug

The crowds cheer but yer deaf and then you race again

Toward someone BAM hit down crunch yer legs feel like clouds

Now yer flying yer head is a symphony of violins

Your eyes see only blue sky and hot summer days

Even though its dark behind your eyes

You feel football in yer heart

And

Everyday now, when you wake up

And yer knees ache and your ankles click

When you walk across the floor

There it is—staring at you, looking right into you—

That jersey with the final game grass stains

It’s hanging on the hook. You go put it on

Drink a cup of coffee yer number 52 again

(Yer gonna be late for work gotta get going)

Racing             hitting              running            slamming

Going down for the hardtackle

Head butting the biggest guy on the other team

(what time is it gotta go to work now)

But then you realize

No—it’s not the other guy

It’s you

Banging your head against the wall

Your head’s ringing

(is it the phone am I late?)

Stars are all around

They’re like that old magic

And your hands hurt when you hit

The ground hard

You feel football in your heart

And you try to smooth glue

Over the broken seams

Where despite your best other efforts

Nothing else can feel—in you—like that

 

Anne Tibbitts writes

Night Memoirs

Looking up at the moon tonight, cold air, my dog going for his last pee, I saw the past. A fingernail moon hung over me in Seoul as I walked through curvy alleys to find my way home after teaching English comp to military men close to the DMZ. A backpack full of essays, or sentence exercises, a cup of coffee from a train station vending machine, a heavy old coat my father used to wear in cold Minnesota winters.  I was always out at night, walking, riding a bus, getting off a train, sitting on a bench, thinking, driving home after a late class let out going from one end of Guam to the other. I was never afraid of the dark. The night was my friend. I enjoyed the phases of the moon. I breathed in the cold winter air, wind whipping down through the alleys, or a tropical moon hanging over the sea, warm air coming in through rolled down windows, or the glance of a mountain’s silhouette through the train from Seoul to Uijongbu. The night was always my friend. All the best things happened at night. I loved the dark sky splattered with twinkling stars. I was alone with my thoughts, my footsteps leaving tracks for no one to follow, headphones playing old songs in my ears, a familiar hat keeping my head warm, happiness all the time.