Riddles
{A Bumbershoot Special Feature}


Rhina P. Espaillat

was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932 and has lived in the United States since 1939. Her poems, essays, narratives and translations have appeared in numerous magazines, on many websites, and in some fifty anthologies.

She has published eleven collections, among them Where Horizons Go, winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize; Rehearsing Absence, winner of the the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award; Lapsing to Grace; and Playing at Stillness.

Espaillat is a founding member of the very active Fresh Meadows Poets in Queens, New York, as well as a founding member and former director of the Powow River Poets.




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Seven Riddles

1.
I blush to keep them still;
they roar, but do my will.

Solution

 

2.
The more I twist, the more I stay,
but straightened out I flow away.

Solution

 

3.
The points I raise uphold your body’s life,
which I secure by wrestling with a knife.

Solution

 

4.
We’re one, but then I’m two:
look sharp, there’s work to do.

Solution

 

5.
For one who seeks me, many thousands shun me,
but in the end there’s none who can outrun me.

Solution

 

6.
Stepping out right, I find
my rival left behind.

Solution

 

7.
One on each side: while there’s a smile between,
both may be felt, but never smelled or seen

Solution
 
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