When I Win, I Start Again
with my one wild and precious
I am compelled to press
start over and over
why must I dive into the cleft
sit with my Schneepart
come up with a mouthful ofÂ
I did it wrong
consult the cards lookingÂ
for Empress in the new year
or at least The Fool at the start
of the month
why can I not find the place
where the route snakes
forward
see the strategy of the maps
I spread across the officeÂ
the way I decorate a couch
or raise my daughter
to jump on a trampoline
how the earth shakes
when I pronounce ne pasaran
to mean the fascists will die
in the mountain pass
and when spring comes
it comes with new songs
touch the underside
of just about any valley
so that it moans with today
and is not merely a site
all that history is isÂ
how you arrived here
Dawn Tefft's poems appear in Denver Quarterly, Fence, and Witness. Her chapbooks include Fist (Dancing Girl Press) and Field Trip to My Mother and Other Exotic Locations (Mudlark). She earned a PhD in Creative Writing at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, volunteers as an editor for Packingtown Review, and lives and works in Chicago.