All right.
Hello.
Can you all hear me?
I think we have a mic control there,
so I don't have to worry.
Thank you to the Poetry Center for having me, and Hannah
for that intro.
And thank you all for being here.
I've just got a few poems for you, and a lot of water
that I'll be drinking, because I'm anxious.
All right, this first one is about football, surprisingly.
It's called "Confessions of a Teenage Linebacker."
Coach says I've got to hit harder.
He guides my hands around the runner's waist.
If I can take another boy down with his own dumbstruck hips,
I'll be goddamn unstoppable.
Johnny doesn't flinch when my hand slips horse collar
between his skin and jersey.
A yellow flag flits from the mock ref's hands,
and I'm on my back.
Johnny too, his legs right over mine, a whole halo of helmets
closing in above us.
What I want must be real dangerous.
My job is to take in the field, to measure each movement
and decide who's the risk.
"Quick thinking," coach says, "quicker feet."
Sometimes I do things before my brain can even
know what's what.
Other times it's like I'm bracing for a chop-block
headed my way, only I can't dodge or do anything
but think about it.
Possibility, I guess.
That's my position.
Johnny didn't flinch, but you'd think he would.
He's still as the center tucks the ball through taut thighs
right into Johnny's waiting hands.
I'm stuck on the sidelines, but I'm
thinking how I want to lick the backs of Johnny's knees.
I think so hard I swear he hears me.
A fumble.
The ball lost in a tangle of bodies.
Coach says I've got to be the barrel and the bullet.
When the trench boys blitz I need to fill each gap.
I'm only one person, but coach says
I've got to act like I'm more--
the force of five, at least.
He's got me practicing with the heaviest sleds,
so when I finally come up against someone Johnny's size,
he'll feel lighter than the football pressed between us.