{"id":1643,"date":"2020-12-18T23:55:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T23:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/vice-versa\/?page_id=1643"},"modified":"2020-12-31T19:23:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T19:23:50","slug":"barbara-crooker","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/vice-versa\/barbara-crooker\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Crooker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Autism Poem: The Grid
\n<\/b><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

A black and yellow spider hangs motionless in its web,
\nand my son, who is eleven and doesn’t talk, sits
\non a patch of grass by the perennial border, watching.
\nWhat does he see in his world, where geometry
\nis more beautiful than a human face?
\nGiven chalk, he draws shapes on the driveway:
\npentagons, hexagons, rectangles, squares.
\nThe spider’s web is a grid,
\ntransecting the garden in equal parts.<\/p>\n

Sometimes he stares through the mesh on a screen.
\nHe loves things that are perforated:
\ntoilet paper, graham crackers, coupons
\nin magazines, loves the order of tiny holes,
\nthe way boundaries are defined.\u00a0 And real life
\nis messy and vague.\u00a0 He shrinks back to a stare,
\nswitches off his hearing.\u00a0 And my heart,
\nnot cleanly cut like a valentine, but irregular
\nand many-chambered, expands and contracts,
\ncontracts and expands.<\/p>\n

She Tells the Dealer, Three More Cards
\n<\/b><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

A thin sickle moon hangs in the western sky
\nover the house where my friend used to live.
\nHer blood count decreases, as cancer deals
\nher another bad hand. Her backbone is turning
\nto ivory dust; her platelet counts diminish
\nin spite of transfusions. The sky is a vault
\nof black ice; the starry dust of the Milky Way
\nflung over our heads, Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.
\nShe is buying new clothes for spring, a ring
\nof blue topaz to wear at night. She has backed
\ndark horses before, long shots going out at 100:1,
\nand won. She plays blackjack, shoots craps, gets comped
\nat Reno. Even though these odds are stacked
\nfor the dealer, the house, she keeps on playing,
\nrolls the dice, rattles them bones.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Barbara Crooker<\/strong><\/span> is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana<\/em>, and author of twelve chapbooks and nine full-length books of poetry. Some Glad Morning,<\/em> Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press, 2019, is the latest. Her awards include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council fellowships in literature. Her work appears in such literary journals and anthologies as Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania <\/em>and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. <\/em>She\u2019s been on The Writer\u2019s Almanac <\/em>fifty-some times, Tracey K. Smith\u2019s The Slowdown<\/em>, and featured on Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry<\/em>. “Autism Poem: The Grid” first appeared in Radiance<\/em> (Word Press, 2005), and “She Tells the Dealer, Three More Cards” in her book Selected Poems <\/i>(FutureCycle Press, 2015).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Autism Poem: The Grid   A black and yellow spider hangs motionless in its web, and my son, who is eleven and doesn’t talk, sits on a patch of grass by the perennial border, watching. What does he see in his world, where geometry is more beautiful than a human face? Given chalk, he draws … <\/p>\n

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