Number Magic: Three

Here’s a poem for you:

  At Zero Hour

  the bullring is halved 
  into sunlight, shadow. 
  In the darkness 

  of the tunnel, 
  a matador arches his back 
  in a suit of lights. 

  A bull rakes the dirt 
  with his black, cloven hooves. 
  On the lips of bottles of cerveza, 

  the flies, urgent with the smell 
  of death, lift their frenzied, 
  rubbing hands to the sun.

    ~ Larry D. Thomas

I love tercets, love the magic inside the number three—the unity of three in one, as in the Christian trinity; the perfect symmetry of an equilateral triangle; the imbalance in love triangles through the ages. Anna-Karenin-Vronsky, Hester-Chillingworth-Dimmesdale.

Consider this little poem by my friend Larry Thomas. Notice how each stanza provides a quick glimpse, a focus . . . and then spills into the next stanza, like a slinky walking down a set of stairs.

Bullring, matador, bull—a tercet for each. But not quite. The third stanza gives two lines to the bull—in perfect focus. And then a surprise, a turn. From the dryness of dirt on raking hooves to the liquid sensations evoked by “lips of bottles of cerveza.”

And then, the final surprise: flies on the rims of the beer bottles, flies smelling death in the bull ring, flies “frenzied” over the smell of blood.

Note:

2008 Texas Poet Laureate Larry D. Thomas is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. Author of several poetry collections, Larry has received several honors, including two Texas Review Poetry Prizes (2001 and 2004), the 2003 and 2015 Western Heritage Awards (National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum), and the 2004 Violet Crown Book Award (Writers’ League of Texas).

“At Zero Hour” is available in Letting the Light Work, a new chapbook from Buttonhook Press. Available here ⇒