Off My Game
By John Grey
April 15, 2024
April 15, 2024
|
|
I stroll by the high school football stadium.
The stars of yesterday are nursing beers in a bar somewhere. Today's heroes are padded up for practice. The quarterback of twenty years ago lost his job when the tire factory closed. The all-state lineman's a security guard at the mall. And yet, a kid's still out there on that oval tossing the ball as far as he can. And another kid takes off like a frightened squirrel and catches the blessed thing. I take my seat in the hard wooden bleachers and watch. Why not. I'm out of work and it's a gorgeous late summer's afternoon. Two bodies smash into each other, fall to earth but get up quickly. That's what I miss the most... getting to my feet. |
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.
Author's Note:
The poem is a recollection of some of my lesser achievements on the sporting fields of high-school and how the lessons learned paralleled those of the classroom. But it also is a gentle critique of the way Americans take high school sports far more seriously than their Australian (like me) counterparts. That’s why a line like “the stars of yesterday are nursing beers in a bar somewhere” is a very American concept. In Australia, there were no high school sporting stars.