Performed by Val Cole
—-
POEM:
Brother, while you were sleeping,
hands crossed over your hot-wired heart,
your friends, Smitty the gambler, and
folk singer Rick, stood at your bedside, then
slipped away. Now it’s just the two of us,
and the urgent beeping in this dim room.
When you awaken, with a moan
I know the pain is back, so I check
the time, head for the nurses’ station.
LaTasha feeds the morphine into the IV.
“This will fix you up.”
“Thank you, darlin’.”
Then she mutes the monitors, leaves us.
In the fragile quiet, you tell me your dream:
the Walmart on Victory Drive has been torn down,
and Baker High is back where it used to be. We are
bleeding out on the practice field,
and Trump, not Whiteside, is our coach.
I remember my broken leg, the team doctor
who called it a bruise. We fought a kind of war
with our teammates, while Vietnam festered
in an open wound, half a world away,
Slowly, the painkiller spreads, and you
drift away. But this time your hands are fists,
one by your face on the pillow, the other
chest-high, like you’re about to throw
a punch. At whom? Our president? The tyrant
of a football coach we all hated?
Untether, brother, go back to the south side,
strap on your helmet, lace up your steel cleats,
take this one last chance to settle the score
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