It’s a sweatpants day
Phil launches the football
into my memory
the slant of the light there
is red, not the red of a match-just-struck
but something cleaner
where runs always crunch into quarter
sand what we forgive is the cool air
with hot cocoa in tall metal thermoses
that somebody’s mom sent along
and sweatshirts collide
with the weekend dusk
while we run touchdowns
over the leaf covered line
the last football days
fall in our lives together
Beth Peterson
A wilderness guide before she began writing, Beth Peterson has an MFA from the University of Wyoming and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Missouri. Her writing has appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Passages North, Post Road, The Pinch and other publications. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan where she's an assistant professor in Grand Valley State University’s writing program.