Jim Daniels’ fourteenth book of poems, Birth Marks, was published by BOA Editions in 2013 and was selected as a Michigan Notable Book, winner of the Milton Kessler Poetry Book Award, and received the Gold Medal in Poetry in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. His fifth book of short fiction, Eight Mile High, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2014. A native of Detroit, Daniels is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.

MIDNIGHT FOOTBALL

Under one streetlight on concrete

gone quiet on night’s a.m. dial

the ball echoes when it drops,

and wobbles, oh, we sweat clean,

clomping in drunken factory boots

steel-toed and glorious thump-

ing as we trudge past parked cars—

buttonhook, criss-cross, flare,

down-and-in, down-and-out,

four of us—passer/receiver

rusher/defender oh Mississippis

one through five, two-hand shove

we don’t touch each other

out of breath, hands on knees,

for we are in the factory’s kind of shape—

but, but—hut, hut, hike—in the air tonight

the burn-off of summer into fall

oh yeah baby—one of us used to be

a high school star, and watching him tonight

run by me still I feel the sad tinny weight

of the announcer calling his name

and nobody thinks I’m mocking him

when I cup my hands: Touchdown

by Herzog! we gather in the street’s

pock-marked end zone in the almost-

dark at the edge of the light’s soft

circle of breath and do a touchdown dance

that frankly was not allowed in school

and it goes on a little long because nobody’s

keeping score or keeping time through this brief

broken window of our lives and no,

the neighbors aren’t shouting shut up,

cool enough tonight for closed windows

maybe or maybe it’s just a home game

and I know it might be easy or expected

to tell Herzog to go long when we switch

teammates, but that’s what I do—

I love to see the man run

and if I say it’s as simple as that

I’m only lying a little bit. Go long!

I shout for everyone to hear, echo

rising up like steam to disappear

into the dark, but I do know better

than to say and keep on going, brother—

our plays more complicated

than that.

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© Copyright, 2014, Jim Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.