The Pole Vaulter.

Evans, David Allan

The Pole Vaulter

   Every time Jerry Tyler
   planted his wrist-thick
   aluminum pole at the end of
   the runway at the end
   of the 50's and went up,
   leaving the rest of us
   in the sawdust,

   he seemed to rise higher--
   10-8, 10-10, 11 feet--
   and to disdain, more
   and more, coming
   back down to the first
   world with its beautiful
   adulterous mother with
   no time for kids;
   its neurotic, brutal father
   with his jet-lagging job
   at Iowa Power and Light;
   and its hard-earned, beat-up,
   unstartable '46 Chevy
   taking up needed space
   in his father's garage.

   He couldn't wait to graduate
   and get out of town, and stay
   as high as he could
   by becoming a roofer.

   He's up there still,
   in my memory, not on
   top of any roof but
   profiled in the sky over
   the Leeds High track and field--
   his black hair bronzed
   like a statue's,
   his sharp, right elbow
   hooked on air,
   but about to fall but never falling
   back to our world of sawdust.