Bewitched Playground

By David Rivard b. 1953 David Rivard

Each could picture probably

with great care his brother drawing

the corded string of a watered silk bag

and mumbling to Basho above the keepsake

pay your respects to mother's white hair

now your eyebrows look a little white too

but all have turned instead to watch this child

a girl my daughter Simone

an astute migrant

skimming the stream of days

toted wherever she wants

to eat the dirt of inattentive towns

to arm wrestle as with

the blind & steal a stoic

shipping him home—

all have turned & run to her because

she has a spider on her neck she has

seen herself

though blindfolded by a cloud

the sun is a yellowjacket

drowning in a cup of coffee she carries

a spider in her hair

blond & blonder dear river.

David Rivard, “Bewitched Playground” from Bewitched Playground. Copyright © 2000 by David Rivard. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: Bewitched Playground (Graywolf Press, 2000)

Biography

David Rivard was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. His collections of poetry include Torque (1988), which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, Wise Poison (1996), winner of the James Laughlin Award, Bewitched Playground (2000), Sugartown (2005), and Otherwise Elsewhere (2010). He has also been a contributor to such publications as Ploughshares, The New England Review, and Poetry, and is a former editor of The Harvard . . .

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