Hoop Poem by Rae Armantrout

1

God twirled
across the face of
what cannot be named
since it was not moving.

God was momentum then,
that impatience
with interruption,

stamping time's blanks
with its own image.

2

Now her theme will be
that she has escaped
certain destruction,

that she is
impossibly lucky.

This theme should be jaunty
but slightly discordant,

coming in, as it does,
so late.

The character
associated with this theme
should be dressed
in markedly old-fashioned clothing—

a hoop skirt perhaps—

while everyone else
is in cut-offs,

ready for the barbeque.