Jane Zwart
The Unreal
Warbler’s eye flat-back onyx
on a non-slip pad.
Necklace of tube bead
cloisonne threaded ziti
left at Lourdes.
Parings of dirty
fingernail commas that grow
zinnias as tall as a man.
Relief of cumulous
over mountains at last a shadow
tall enough
for the cloud
that tows it.
First amethyst a handful of dusk
Eve crumpled.
The Great Descenders
for Kristine
About bicycling up mountains
we who have dismounted Schwinns
on mild hills agree: how amazing,
how grueling, we would rather coerce
unwilling mules up such summits.
As Kristine and I run a route without
any grade greater than ten degrees,
she says commentators also praise
the great descenders, cyclists best
at besting steepness on the way
back down. We, who do not ride,
scoff. We think descent the easy part,
its only mandate not to tip the bike.
But she and I would say that, we
who would be poor descenders, unable
to bear the carelessness of coasting,
instead pumping our bikes’ brakes
for the slope’s duration; we, brought up
to admire guileless trials, hard climbs—
pumping legs, pumping heart.
Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, and Ploughshares, as well as other journals and magazines.