Men Talking in Hamtramck
I believed in the permanence of after-school nightfall.
I baked myself into the sweater-vest adulthood
of bedtime sitcom.
I am still waiting in a TV dinner—
to be picked up for indoor soccer practice
inside some white light dome that's
inside some pitch black vacuum
of midwinter night.
The six allotted ravioli have burnt the mouth
and singed a top layer of leaves
below which a toddler swims.
Over the minivan radio
I imagined the young adult voice
of my soccer coach
singing an alternative rock number
about bachelor pad apartments
in Waterford
and questionable 20-something love
affairs from Clarkston
to Shelby.
I have climbed out of grandparent
bodies
to document the neighborhood there
to which I've been
born.
Sucking in golfballs from the nearby
driving range like Hungry Hungry
Hippos
and toppling down the landfill
bunny hill of Alpine Valley
in concussed recollections of
computer lab SkiFree.
I believed in the frozen moment of Sam Malone's
after-work evening.
I prayed to the imagined bedrooms of sitcom
characters
where childhood recharges then
replays in deliberate fashions
for them
and for me.
Now it's just men talking in Hamtramck
of the latest fire
and arms creased behind their backs.
Two blacked out TVs pin the corner of
my room and the heartburn is
unbearable.