Winningest coach gets sacked
for a few hundred cups of spit,
striated, cavernous chests
on boys who should, statistically,
be long-haired and dimpled,
tobacco stains on fingernails
grown long to pick a guitar,
pump out those three-chord
blessings, the ones that
make us strain and grunt
and strive while the wrestler,
the jock, spends his nights creating
kinesthetic harmonies, strumming,
muting, plucking out six-minute
symphonies we know nothing of
in our culture of dribbles
and dunks where there’s always
a teammate to pass the ball to,
teacher to blame when we
lock hands, flee the mat.