The Negative
Poetry by S. Wilson Collins
Since junior high I watched
the gym rats toss iron
in the room with mirrors
for walls -
where weights whirr
like ceramic plates.
The room moved, piece
by piece and clanked
like a machine
under the engine drone
of the fluorescent fan
as a swelter draft
ghost tided
through and between dumbbells
like summer off tarmac; sweet
oil sweat slicked
and grated
in the grips. The rats
mushed and huffed
their reflections
bulbed like pomegranate, torquing
acid deep into muscle until
like a static piston
they fume
fossilize rust to bone. All that is left
is the whispering negative. One last rep
out of reach for nothing.
Samuel Collins is an International Relations major at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia who resides in mid-coast Maine when he is not in school. Since high school Samuel has enjoyed writing about poetry, poets and everything in between on his blog The Poet Pantry: Verses Preserved, Thoughts Unreserved.
[...] believe it or not one of my poems, “The Negative,” was published yesterday on the awesome literary site “Splinter Generation”. [...]
Killer imagery, bro-ham. “torquing
acid deep into muscle” — tyyyyyyyyyyyte!