[R. S. Gwynn]

Frost at Golf


Scoring. You’ve got to score.

badness


He’s in the woods again. There are two roads
To the 18th green, both bad. He plays his foot-
wedge to the fairway. Now there’s just one, but
He shanks his five iron deeper in the woods.
His partners look away; they know his moods.
At softball one time Larry tagged him out
And got a face full of the great man’s shit.
Larry smiles faintly. Larry’s got the goods.


The poet’s game is either fire or ice.
Some of the time he drives it straight and far,
But tops his second like he tops his third.
No god can help that really nasty slice
Except a tree or wall or, once, a bird.

He calls five feet a gimme, cards his par.