this one is for
the clenched jaws that
collide with closed fist
and cracked knuckle and
are sent careening down
to the cold concrete
below, the tendons that
tear on the first
toss and return too
tender to make the
team, the frail figures
that float between lampposts
on fall nights while
the fraternity flood drowns
the town.
who will sculpt
your visage in
bronze, carve your
name into the
side of a
tree trunk, pen
an ode to
you and sing
it into the
universe until it
rings and rings
and rings?
they write your deeds in
water, but evaporation eventually sends
them soaring into the sky
to sing with their siblings
in a cloud chorus that
crawls over the landscape and
soon rains, sending stories cascading
into the fields and forests
and trickling deep into the
dark earth where they cause
seeds to break open and
shoot up and up and