The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Ryan McAllister


the last game

we never knew which would be the last game each summer
that time when no one would come to the field next time
the lastness of it slouched by, unnoticed in the heat
the already wavering excitement we held for what we thought of

as a new year

soon, a summer had come and gone without warning
strange how, in the breeze of its departure
something threatening smelled suddenly too close
the way a deer freezes in the autumn woods

unlike magicians, loathe to repeat their tricks
we perform these mysteries over and over upon ourselves
and yet, how what we do becomes what we used to do
remains as puzzling, as unconfrontable, as ever.


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