Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

In The Field 
Laura Madeline Wiseman

     The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn.
     ~Shakespeare

Not snow or ice or rain or cold. I march
weekdays in the fall.
Not cork grease in a tube.
Not key pads glued in place.
Not a hard-sided case of blue crushed velvet.
Not a new reed. All split, chip, smash after use.
Not a swab to wick the spit away from the inside.
Not the band director.
Not the band room.
Not my clarinet section—firsts chairs, seconds, thirds.
They will never practice their parts.
Not hours in the slim practice room of two chairs,
a stand, copies of Sousa’s dog fight.
Not my lunch with third chairs. The band director
waggles his pointer finger.
Not my uniform of black pants with seamed stripes.
Seen from the stands every member
marches out of step, out of line.
Not the plume on my hat in a winter gust.
Not a face in the bleachers. Every game I play
for me alone.
Not football or b-ball games, nor state competitions.
The band director loves his jazz band first.
Not combinations of right, left, right.
Not triplets, trills, or high notes.
Not melody.
Not the saxophone who lifts me in a slow twirl.

My cock speaks, You can’t count on any of that,
but you can count on me.

 

Laura Madeline Wiseman is a PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. Her work has appeared in Margie, Blackbird, Arts & Letters, Prairie Schooner, and 13^th Moon. Her book, Sprung, is forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press. She is also the author of three chapbooks of poetry, Branding Girls, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010).