Poem - Portrait of a Yo-Yo Artist - Caroline Harvey

He's the kind of man
that loves wide and strong but not often.
I don't know why,
but I hope it's me he chooses to notice next.

Now a stop sign is a large red object that commands
stillness.
The brakes on the car --
moody.
Put those two things together and
you get one missed intersection
combined with the distinct feeling that this night
is about to get real --
symbolic.

Now a yo-yo is a small plastic toy
held together by an inner core
split down the middle and
wrapped with a string.
Slip your finger thru the tiny hole
at the end of the string
and throw the toy away from you
with the intention of pulling it back in.
Much the same way assholes leave their girlfriends
and show up the next day with flowers.

He
is a 6' tall 380 pound man.
Lips like a dam
threatening to break
into the kind of smile that evacuates cities.
It's dangerous when a man like this is happy.

Now peanut butter and jelly
are two things that go together like ham and cheese.
But a yo-yo and a 380 lb man
make about as much sense
as combining the words military and intelligence.
It's as obvious as Peach
and the Giant James
But his name is David.
The undisputed yo-yo king, and he's big.
Absolutely, unbelievably, gigantically big.
Big like overflowing from within big.
Big like full right up to the brim big
and can't do anything but be big big.
Fuck super sized!
He is mad hecka mega sized ocean sized planet sized
the whole solar system got you hypnotized and mesmerized kind of
larger than life-sized. Big!
And I'm small.

But he says
you gotta trust me.
So I do it implicitly
because if a man this big is that great
with something as small as a yo-yo
then I know I'm in good hands.
Even though for most men
I am more than a handful.

We're headed to a club where yo-yo players
as good as David don't pay
and never ask twice for a refill.
And maybe the waitresses don't know it
but there is more to him than a small plastic toy.
He makes me want to do cannonballs into the Bay
just so I can feel like this tiny body
has the power to make waves.
I want to grab the places on him that don't fit into boxes
and steal some of his greatness for myself.
And I  know there are people so small-minded
they would say he's too big
but it's amazing how small the word big is.

As we drive across the bridge
David pops his collar away from his neck
in two two staccato beats.
I can tell this silent monologue
is built into the marrow of his behavior
the way warmth is built into sunshine
and as this detail colors in his broad outlines
my first impression turns from draft to print.

Now, a bridge is an object that spans an obstacle
and connects two different points.
We are two people full to the brim
with what's been left unsaid.
Put those things together
and you get the kind of moment
that the old insist is worth growing old for
just so you can spend your life remembering.
Picture it: a girl leans onto the shoulder of a man
because she can't find words for what's in her heart.

Now a heart is kinda like a small plastic toy
an inner core split down the middle
wrapped with a string.
Kinda like people
held only by heart strings we wrap around fingers
throwing everything we have into a moment
where fear makes us feel like we're about to snap.
And every time we fall
most of us just hope we'll return,
safely wrapped and still in one piece.
Blindly trusting the good hands of a stranger
to spin us toward home.