Game 4

CHI 92               ORL 87

We pretend life is glossy--

Predigested imagery
Passed along by mother bird
Into our waiting mouths--
Easy to swallow.

We want to see the cartoon--
Seamless.

Crystalline characters
Perched on
The tips icebergs.

Three-pointers and
Alley-oops and
Ankle-breaking buzzer-beaters.

This is what we want to see--
But this is not life.

Real life is sweaty
And hidden behind a cloud.

Life is digging in dirt
For worms
And then
Giving those worms
To our children.

Life is the same drawing
Over and over and over again--

A mountain of cold days.

Staying down and
Closing out and
Last second stops.