The Art of Rhetoric
Karen Craigo
Last night the cold feet of Aristotle
prodded me in the side, kept me
awake and thinking. I was working out
a new way to teach the basics
of rhetoric, and instead of sawing logs,
I tossed around with the question,
worried my sheet was a snug toga.
I tend to specialize in tiny arguments,
compact ones, ones that comform
to my logic and maybe no one else's,
but I'd stake my life on most of them.
Same goes for this baby beside me,
curled against my back like the comma
my students prop so loyally between
two independent clauses, and cling to
as if they were the last contestants
in a radio contest, hands sweating
against the body of a Ford F-150 until
one by one they fall away and the semester
comes to a close. I'd like to tell them
there is nothing more convincing than
the whispered swallows I hear behind me
as my son works his bottle in his sleep.
Each nearly silent gulp males me calm.