b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Strike

After several beers and tireless bragging
about the planes of pectoral rock
beneath his shirt, he asks you to hit him
in the chest, really punch him,
put all of your weight into the blow.
And the ale swirling and swilling inside you,
smothers your usual hesitance, chokes off
any sense of momentum or strength.
You strike him just below the collarbone
fist and muscle colliding like stone
against stone. Sparks radiate from his shirt:
small blue and silver comets
shoot outward from checkered flannel,
bursts of cerulean light
that fade in the fall toward worn carpet.
No one else sees them but you and him.
And me.