by Shoshy Ciment
What is it about high school
football players
Dressed in second skins and
rain soaked masks
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries
Content to bleed
on newly cut grass
if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the trenches they wear their dreams without shame. They can cry because death is so much bigger than a loss to Avery High School. And I can cry for them because they fought for a
grand old flag
a high flying flag
waving with the
frailty of a dying man
Edges tattered like
Hand-me-down fatigues
Those stars and stripes
never looked so
cruel
as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and sealed in primer. We all wept because you had lost. And it was okay. It was noble. All fields hold dying dreams of crying men but some dreams are more heroic than others and high school trophies and touchdowns are not. When I lowered you into the ground, I wondered if
the grass still held
the memory of you before
you left
Could it still taste your
teenage blood
that stained the fields with
simple dreams of
simple victories
No comments:
Post a Comment