The fathers think of soccer
as the usual battlefield.
They expect to see warriors
where little girls were.
From beside the sweet crushed grass
by the equator of the field
where they watch their own daughters
hesitate, lend a hand
to another who is down,
and hear, Oh, sorry! No, YOU go ahead!
rise like doves from the din of the game,
they holler,
Get it! Get the ball! Stick with it!
The daughters hear them, of course,
but from inside themselves
come their mothers’ cotton voices,
and they can’t make their own tongues stop.
Nobody speaks of disappointment
as the morning dew darkens the surfaces
of everyone’s shoes,
as the fading fathers
hunker under sweatshirt hoods
and talk of the next game
as though they still have a chance.
Marilyn Bushman-Carlton has five children and ten
grandchildren. She has two poetry books — Cheat Grass
and on keeping things small. A third book, Her Side
of It, is forthcoming. Marilyn is working on a research/
writing project analyzing quotes by President David O.
McKay. He was the prophet of her youth and, as a seeker
of the “virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy,”
is a primary source of personal strength and testimony.
