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"The Opposites Game"

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For Patricia Maisch

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This day my students and 
I play the Opposites Game

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with a line from Emily Dickinson. 
My life had stood

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a loaded gun, it goes and 
I write it on the board,

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pausing so they can call 
out the antonyms –

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My Your

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Life Death

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Had stood ? Will sit

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A Many

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Loaded Empty

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Gun ?

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Gun.

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For a moment, very much 
like the one between

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lightning and its sound, 
the children just stare at me,

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and then it comes, a flurry, 
a hail storm of answers –

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Flower, says one. No, Book, says another. 
That's stupid,

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cries a third, the opposite of a 
gun is a pillow. Or maybe

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a hug, but not a book, 
no way is it a book. With this,

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the others gather their thoughts

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and suddenly it’s a shouting match. 
No one can agree,

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for every student there’s a final answer. 
It's a song,

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a prayer, I mean a promise, 
like a wedding ring, and

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later a baby. Or what’s that 
person who delivers babies?

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A midwife? Yes, a midwife. 
No, that’s wrong. You're so

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wrong you’ll never be right again. 
It's a whisper, a star,

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it's saying I love you into your 
hand and then touching

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someone's ear. Are you crazy? 
Are you the president

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of Stupid-land? You should be, 
When's the election?

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It’s a teddy bear, a sword, 
a perfect, perfect peach.

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Go back to the first one, 
it's a flower, a white rose.

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When the bell rings, I reach 
for an eraser but a girl

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snatches it from my hand. 
Nothing's decided, she says,

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We’re not done here. 
I leave all the answers

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on the board. The next day 
some of them have

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stopped talking to each other, 
they’ve taken sides.

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There's a Flower club. 
And a Kitten club. And two boys

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calling themselves The Snowballs. 
The rest have stuck

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with the original game, 
which was to try to write

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something like poetry.

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It's a diamond, it's a dance,

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the opposite of a gun is 
a museum in France.

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It's the moon, it's a mirror,

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it's the sound of a bell and the hearer.

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The arguing starts again, 
more shouting, and finally

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a new club. For the first time 
I dare to push them.

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Maybe all of you are right, I say.

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Well, maybe. Maybe it's everything 
we said. Maybe it’s

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everything we didn't say. It's words 
and the spaces for words.

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They're looking at each other now. 
It's everything in this

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room

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and outside this room and down 
the street and in the sky.

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It's everyone on campus and at the mall, 
and all the people

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waiting at the hospital.
And at the post office. And, yeah,

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it's a flower, too. All the flowers. 
The whole garden.

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The opposite of a gun is 
wherever you point it.

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Don’t write that on the board, 
they say. Just say poem.

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Your death will sit through 
many empty poems.