Fallen Athlete Poem by Elizabeth Anne Martina Ryan

Admiring the neighbour's nutritious garden
and subdivisions of time, you eat dinner from a jar
and work and play referring to an ivory abacus
Your head emptied of levity looks to the topaz horizon
as you wash past the crate houses and slept-in clothes
and compromised landscape
to scrape art from the lot. Or reach for less in the end
pushing aside the tulips and populism
hitched by the cheering rally whose tears cross the view
Shadows stretch the field, exhausted at every step
The stadium's golden track's wound like a spring
Liquid day flees past, dappled and quick
and limbs a sheet
The sun crossing ahead and the loosened harbour's
plough and practice
You fall into yourself and nothing, whistling like grass