Tough Call Dave Malone __________ When my father reffed high school football games, he kept a mental log of epithets the fans yelled and shared the best over Schlitz with his newspaper buddies on our patio. It was mostly laughs except for the occasional telling after a six-pack of the…
Read MoreTecmo Bowl Days Matt Rector __________ before the spastic torment of middle school when an erection was just an uncomfortable oddity and the television had a dial and wood paneling we lost a summer to this game backs hunched thumbs fast legs folded on the floor inside our parents’ living…
Read MoreDouble-Sonnet in Race Prince Bush __________ To actively respect difference is activism with adverbVital. Stand, stare, hark and talk up:Verb and direction vital—to peelThe white paint over bricks the colorOf our bones. The wrong languageIsn’t splitting hairs but splits into atrocitiesThat add up to states. Warring. The 49er’s,Named after the…
Read MorePoem in Which Darlington Emerges AJ White __________ 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,…
Read MoreMy Football Team is Winning (III) Dorsey Craft __________ And my granddaddy’s still dead. He swatsan almighty yellow jacket from a star-soakedcan of Coke while our tailgate moves fartherout on the asphalt grid. We’ve got a healthylead. We’ve got a blond quarterback with eyeslike the last two red salmon pouting…
Read MoreTackle Jess Williard __________ When he said he could believe in something closer to what she believes in, and because of her, he meant because. Not for. And in the breath after that truth there the both of them are on a turf field in August. It’s sweltering, the the…
Read MoreHash Marked Jordan Escobar __________ Toothless and hungry, he wakes in the back of his truck. The sky remains broken on grimy windows, as he rubs sensation back into his stubbled jaw. This day and this day again. The pops and aches of his discarded body remembering its own vulnerabilities.…
Read MoreThe Last Frozen Tundra Brian Chander Wiora __________ On December 20, 2010, the Minnesota Vikings played their first outdoor home game since 1981 at TCF Bank Stadium, their last outdoor home game ever. The Vikings play tonight behind a discontinuous curtain of snow, a lethargic, everlasting precipitation settles into each…
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