Caki Wilkinson is the author of the poetry collections Circles Where the Head Should Be (UNT Press, 2011), which won the 2010 Vassar Miller Prize, and The Wynona Stone Poems (Persea Books, 2014).

Preamble Redux

We the People of the United States
left ethos to a pen. We, the deputies,
the polite, the few, spotted unease.
We fed the tease, the populist tone,
used white hope to flatten tepees

or mint freedom. Our pre-nation force
financed ferment. Our roomier troop,
in time, renounced art for more proof
of empire incurred, men afoot or torn
in order to form a more perfect union.

Knuckleball Song

So this is it:

the grip you got,

your last resort

the sport of spin

rescinded—proof

perhaps you’re not

a has-been bent

for injury.

Forget your old

trajectories,

the bids against

diminishing

returns, the hits

you can’t unearn.

Admit it, when

the pink dirt burns

where someone’s thicker

skin just slid,

you’ve got this grip.

Another trope?

A trick play? Sure,

but so is hope.

Caki Wilkinson is the author of the poetry collections Circles Where the Head Should Be (UNT Press, 2011), which won the 2010 Vassar Miller Prize, and The Wynona Stone Poems (Persea Books, 2014), which won the 2013 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award. A graduate of Rhodes, she earned her MFA at The Johns Hopkins University and her PhD at the University of Cincinnati. Recent poems have appeared in the Kenyon Review, Yale Review, and Crazyhorse