Poem in Which Darlington Emerges

AJ White

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in Armuchee, in Cedartown, in Bowdon, 
Ridgeland, Mt. Zion, Gordon Lee—
we must have seemed so proud

walking out of cinder block locker rooms 
in our loud, clean purple. Our sweat bands, 
tacky gloves, double sets of calf socks.

The prep swag, eyes bright and dumb. 
Ain't nothing like a Tiger on a Friday night 
the mantra, Welcome to the Jungle

every autumn Friday night since I was seven. 
White helmets with a purple paw print, 
purple stripe, purple paw print stickers

for touchdowns, for tackles—mine came 
by way of interceptions, deflected passes, 
quick calves, chest glued to their best

guy's upfield shoulder, roving beyond 
the hash, stepping up in the flat 
to set the edge, run the halfback down

into the hard grass. But what do I know? 
We played a little football. Now Tylon 
is at Wharton. Will is still alive,

I hope. Chris is not.
BJ we've talked about. Thad's engaged 
and teaching and seems better now.

I ran into Alex a few weeks ago—
I had wanted to make him my best man. 
Maybe it's not all gone, all preterite.

All that purple, that swagger 
and shade. It felt so close to perfect, 
in those days, to hurt.

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AJ White has served as coordinator of the Levis Reading Prize and as lead copy editor of Blackbird. He has taught English and creative writing to high school and university students, attended the Sewanee Writers Conference, and holds degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University, where his work was awarded the Thomas Gray Poetry Prize, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

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