An Old Starline Baton Brings Back Betsy Westake

She always knew too late
when the epeleptic devil was on her heels:
she froze in the seizure foreknown the shredded
morning her memory flapping like a sheet
suddenly rotten ripped in strips that all could see
strewn through fifty miles of bare-limbed trees.
Surprise surprise she’d soon become a nameless
rag-o-bones of the Grand Mal mouth of pink foam
kicking spitting on the floor of the lockered hall.

But on those Friday nights when she twirled,
her batons turned into pure platinum wheels
dislodged from the chariot of Zeus.
She ripped them off from Olympus brought
down to the fifty-yard line her wildest loot.
We saw her on the football field
blur those hammered wands
in the sky sailing above the stadium
glare she spun them into rare iridium.

The demons fled that classic alchemy,
the Father of the Muses reclined
enthroned with patience for his wheels’ return.
And everyone in the distant bleachers
somehow knew her theft was hardest earned.
The crowd of locals roared with wolf whistles
as our girl smacked and kicked around
the Maker of Surprise. She tossed her nearly
perfect revenge of nearly perfect balance
into a greater dark where she could not
possibly see it whirl above the field lights.
But as is destiny it came back spinning down
and she would sweep it by its tail and let it fly
again to evaporate into the atmosphere unbound
unknown where only moon could make it sparkle.
Where did it go? It seemed to hang for years
while she waved to us in momentary cavalier.
It came spinning down with her laughing
up at the big lights tricked to make it most unclear--
surprise surprise she never let it hit the ground.