"The Opposites Game" by Brendan Constantine

The Opposites Game

For Patricia Maisch

This day my students and
I play the Opposites Game

with a line from Emily Dickinson.
My life had stood

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

pausing so they can call
out the antonyms –

My Your

Life Death

Had stood ? Will sit

A Many

Loaded Empty

Gun ?

Gun.

For a moment, very much
like the one between

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

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

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

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

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

the others gather their thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

on the board. The next day
some of them have

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

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

calling themselves The Snowballs.
The rest have stuck

with the original game,
which was to try to write

something like poetry.

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

the opposite of a gun is
a museum in France.

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

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

The arguing starts again,
more shouting, and finally

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

Maybe all of you are right, I say.

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

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

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

room

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

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

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

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

The opposite of a gun is
wherever you point it.

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

Your death will sit through
many empty poems.