Calvin Ross
Our Unofficial Class Poet Laureate
Muscular Poetics
Field events of shot, javelin, and discus
are held away from the track for safety.
Whenever you see these three hold sway,
the most fun is the one that is heaviest.
Official rules for shot put specify entering
and exiting the concrete ring at the back.
I broke a big pinky by slamming my foot
into the toe board at the front of the ring.
The Jr. High grapefruit weighed 8 pounds;
Surprisingly, I tossed it a decent 41 feet.
At East High it tipped scales at 12 pounds;
I won the Kansas state meet at 54.8 feet.
The college heft of iron was 16 pounds;
A Parry O’Brien glide got a school record.
With Senior Games’ 3 kilograms weight
I set an age group new record of 42 feet,
But in later games I lobbed a cannon ball
of 2 kilograms a paltry 37 feet in a sweaty
unceremonious conclusion to a career
of flinging steel spheres in skyward arcs.
Their thuds would carve artistic patterns
of divots on the chalk-lined field of dirt.
Metal orbs now sit abreast on a garage
shelf in the comfort of a well earned rest,
wins and near wins etched in dust and rust
covering decades of my torque and thrust.
– Calvin Ross
Editor’s Note: Several years ago, Calvin wrote a story about his experiences in shot put competition and explained some of the physics and body mechanics involved. See “Tossing a Shot Across Six Decades.” “Muscular Poetics” tells that story in a very different way.
