Cartwheel by January Gill O’Neil

And when no one is looking

I will spin my Ferris-wheel-body

into a patch of late autumn leaves,

pretend I am a kaleidoscope

in what I can only describe 

as a soul walk, 

my neurons navigating 

how fast and how hard 

I move in space. 

I should be dead

or at best badly injured,

fighting gravity in jeans

and an oversized sweatshirt

that flips above my head,

each move betraying me  

as the revolution happens.

I have never been a gymnast, 

I’m not limber, can’t to this day 

touch my toes or do the splits. 

How have I not broken a bone?

Sooner or later, all our graves 

come for us—my legs 

cloud-swimming toward 

the coming world.  

Back straight, tummy tucked,

my stance wide and precise 

as I wager a bet on myself. 

What I want to say is this:

all this time, I have been able 

to balance my little life in my hands.

That I go through the turn

and keep landing on my feet  

is a goddamn miracle.

“My legs cloud-swimming toward the coming world” is a modified line from Major Jackson’s poem “Winter” from The Absurd Man. His original line: “and legs as though cloud-swimming toward the coming world.” 

January Gill O’Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University, and the author of Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and currently serves on the boards of AWP, Mass Poetry, and Montserrat College of Art. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She lives with her two kids in Beverly, MA. 

4 April 2022