Volume 16:1, Winter 2015
Sonnet Issue
The Field at Potts Camp
Some days I hope to come upon a God
but most days its enough to find a field
like this onedanced to mud by girls who wield
cosmologies of hula hoops, who nod
as a man makes brass sing, and by boys who
know light as a thing sold in tubes, to be
cracked and hung at your neck. Olly olly
oxen free, well say, if theres a God to
be found. Or Yahtzee. Or Dibs. God knows
I can set a universe to my hips.
God only knows if I can make it spin.
I pray there is truth in neon: grace, grown
through fracture. I dance with a cup at my lips,
a sinner who finds her faith in the sin.
Sandra Beasley is author of three poetry collections: Count the Waves (W. W. Norton, 2015); I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize (W.W. Norton, 2011); and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize (New Issues Press, 2007), and a memoir, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life (Random House, 2012). Honors for her work include a 2015 NEA Fellowship, the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize, and two DCCAH Artist Fellowships. She lives in Washington, DC, and teaches with the University of Tampa low-residency MFA program. To read more by this author: 5 poems, First Books Issue