The Game After the Game

The score doesn't matter. I know it does. I know there are people who will read that sentence and close the poem. But stay. The score doesn't matter because what you remember is the catch. Not the statistic. Not the replay. The moment your body did something your mind hadn't approved yet— hands out, ball arriving, and the sound it makes when leather meets palm at exactly the right second of exactly the right day and the whole field goes silent before it goes loud. Sports is the body's poetry. The sprint that says: I am still here. The dive that says: I refuse the ground. The pass that says: I trust you without looking. I played because my father played. He played because his father didn't have the chance. Three generations of the same throw, each one throwing a little farther. The game ends. The field empties. The lights go off and the chalk lines fade by morning. But the ride home— windows down, jersey still on, somebody's dad buying everyone ice cream because we won, or because we didn't and ice cream doesn't care about the score either— that's the real game. That's the one that stays.