Archive
Diskobolos
by Pia Taavila
My students now study the sculptor and statue
marking externals: proportion and scale.
We talk of the casting, of bronze, wax or stone,
of chisel and bit, of angle and stance,
the trick of believing it moved or it spoke.
We ponder intention, the artist’s technique,
all the while confronting the shock of our
selves looking in mirrors, the false masks, the pose.
Oh, to be naked, truly stripped down, exposed,
where one’s inner essence resides on the skin
in veins of fine marble, in muscle and pore.
I step off the platform, regard my life’s work
and take up the hammer to smash things
to bits, brutal and glad. The students gasp.
*
Pia Taavila is a professor of English at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Her book Moon on the Meadow compiled poems written over three decades, and last year a new chapbook, Two Winters, was published by Finishing Line Press.
Math Tutor
Today I tire of abstract lectures,
trigonometry’s equations,
the theory of topology.
Put away your textbook.
Assess the addition of our absolute
values. Multiply the factors.
Kiss me. Until we test,
it’s all hypothesis. Gather data.
Calculate initial results.
Kiss me again, exponentially.
Above its x/y axis,
let me graph your parabola’s arc.
If the plot points fail,
we can go back to zero.
Meet me in the lab of love.
by Pia Taavila
The Core of a Woman
One cold tomato on a white plate.
Taut skin. Beads of moisture.
The bitter stem. Leaves, serrated.
Quartered.
Pulp. Juice.
Suspended seeds.
Waiting to be salted.
by Pia Taavila
Waste
A solitary figure walks the bridge span
as water rushes through drainpipes below.
The rank smell of earth and runoff rises to the pavement.
Streetlights splay on pitted asphalt, potholes,
the roadway ruined by the snowplow’s blade.
It’s a woman, rummaging through her pocketbook.
She opens a handkerchief, drops something
shiny into the river, its round weight
falling through mist-filled air.
At the last second, she sees a gold glint
as it disappears, black eddies swirling,
closing over its hollow core.
by Pia Taavila
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qarrtsiluni 