TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

There are people who like to play games — Monopoly, charades, cards — and then there are people like me. I don’t know why, exactly, but generally speaking I find games tedious rather than enjoyable. I beg off when invited over to friends’ houses for “game night.” I don’t want to be taught poker or Euchre at a family gathering. So many rules, and so much time, and for what? I’d rather just relax and talk!

But here’s my one exception: If my kids ask me to play something with them, I will. Checkers, a board game, Uno — you name it. They might be able to tell that I’m not that into it, but when you have teens and they want to do anything with you, anything at all, the answer is yes.

That said, some games I can tolerate better than others. I’m partial to trivia. I don’t mind guessing games and word games. The fewer rules and pieces, the better. In these kinds of games, you’re concerned with what’s in the other player’s mind instead of what cards are in their hand. It’s almost like following a writing prompt — the baseline concept can be the same, but everyone brings something unique to the page or, in the case of a game, to the living room or the backseat of a car on a road trip.

That uniqueness also brings space for absurdity. No matter what happens, in my experience these games always end up with people shouting, and laughing, and making ridiculous guesses, and that’s the fun. Who cares about winning?!

Today’s poem is full of questions but doesn’t circle on a single, winning answer. Instead, it finds possibility — and poetry — in the spaces between yes and no.

Twenty Questions
by Jayrold Trasporte

after Jim Moore

Did I mistake the water again
for forgiveness this morning? Washing
the piled-up dishes, the horseflies
in this sun-sticky mid-afternoon
buzz their uncoded syllables of want
as if they know better
about desire? Did it hurt, you
in the backyard, alone, scraped
knees, building a nest
for love? What about the promise of change
of season? Did summer arrive too early for us?
Did I not put enough sugar
in your coffee
on your way to work, late? Wouldn’t it be fair
to mention the excess, too, and our
neighbour’s complaints? Was I wrong
to ask to be touched
the right way? Slamming the door,
throwing off the keys, kicking
your legs, was it
too much? Don’t you think we should replace
the painting on the wall? How is it possible,
the ruin? Getting in your car, the gravel road,
but to where and to what end? Did it just go
away? What if there was
nothing there to begin with? Am I
culpable? Do I need to know?
What about the starlings?
Or the coralliums? Are we as good
as dead? Or better than?

“Twenty Questions” by Jayrold Trasporte. Used by permission of the poet.