Before the Ever After: Part 1

And my boys say Ah man, you threw it too far!
while I go back behind the garage where
we have a whole bunch of footballs
waiting and ready
for when my daddy sends one into the abyss.

I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
the TV ran their interviews
with him recounting the plays
of the Super Bowl game when the guy
on the other team let the ball
fly right through his hands.

And two years later when his mom
lost her leg because of a disease called diabetes,
my dad said, he cried because he didn’t have the money
to make life comfortable for her.

This guy on the radio said the world was going to end
when we got to the new millennium. That it was gonna
explode—a whole nother big bang
but this time, instead of the earth being created,
it was just gonna bust into smithereens and all of us
would be gone from here.

This guy on the radio said the world was going to end
when we got to the new millennium. That it was gonna
explode—a whole nother big bang
but this time, instead of the earth being created,
it was just gonna bust into smithereens and all of us
would be gone from here.

We were all sitting in the kitchen mixing cereal:
Kix and Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loops and
some bad organic one
my mom tried to sneak in with the others.

The fireplace is going, and I’m working on a puzzle
in front of it. It’s a Yeti on top of a mountain, and so far
the Yeti’s head is done.

But now the song is in my head and I’m remembering
how nice it sounded when the
sopranos came in over the tenors and the basses
and the beautiful altos picked it all up.

But now the song is in my head and I’m remembering
how nice it sounded when the
sopranos came in over the tenors and the basses
and the beautiful altos picked it all up.

But now the song is in my head and I’m remembering
how nice it sounded when the
sopranos came in over the tenors and the basses
and the beautiful altos picked it all up.

I am singing when Mom tiptoes down the stairs,
tells me to stop singing so loud.
Your dad has a migraine, she says.

What kind of tests?
For the headaches. She looks out the kitchen window.
And the memory stuff.
Guess they want to rule out dementia. I don’t know.

You’re a total chauvinist.

The year Daddy tore two ligaments in his knee,
but made the touchdown anyway,
he was home like this
for a month.

Even
before she met my father, Bernadette
could tell you the position of every player on
most of the teams in the NFL. She follows
football like astronomers follow stars.