NADIA COMANECHI
Montreal, 1976
Yet there are consolations, she chooses a point
in the hush-swept stadium
straightens arms, legs, attracting us to watch
as, first, she hesitates, then rises--
as if some law
suspended itself to witness her grasp
a point five feet above,
coil, and then unwind, relaxing into mathematics
as a chameleon
darkens to become
one with the earth. Soon, when she lands,
a score will flash,
those leaning against the rails will note
her hair now ruffled,
officials will hear the thud as energy
soaks into the mat,
a pureness will escape, a light from a dying star
or lamp that sheds a curve
across a wall where Rheticus rams his skull
against the stone,
or Kepler, disease crawling through his hand,
drops his chalk,
an abstract love unfolds, inflames his mind,
and thirty years
wrinkle into his face before perfection.
She does not play,
perfection recedes from her, a curve
never to touch its axis:
her instant dissolves, the past expands, she lands
smiling without warmth, entirely human.
Kevin Hart
"Kevin Hart's *Flame Tree: Selected Poems*
will be released by Bloodaxe Books in Britain in March,
2001".
This poem is here re-printed with the kind permission of the author.
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