Emily Viggiano Saland, Trajectory: a Verse Biography of Evel Knievel (Print + PDF)
Poems and drawings. Many birds. 2019. 36pp. ISBN 978-1-934832-69-1.
Print + PDF. $14 includes shipping in US.
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A sample:
Wembley, 1975
If it had only been twelve busses
Knievel would have made it, but twelve
doesn’t have the same ring.
Fractured pelvis, broken hand.
Another intake of breath
as the stretcher is dismissed.
I came in walking, I went out walking,
a series of tiny vaults they will not fault.
As a father teaches his infant son,
ambulation is a controlled fall.
Launch yourself off balance and pray
the parabola doesn’t come up short.
Knievel taught little Bobby more
than how to walk—he gave him wings,
or rather, beat them out of him
with a cane hollowed out to hold Wild Turkey.
Now Bobby does the warm-up show,
his face a softer, more attractive version
of his father’s. His skin is smooth and pink
as new scar tissue. He always lands his jumps.
