The Football Players You Pretend To Love Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Into your houses that stand for nothing—popcorn light
That gets blinded on the 4th of July
While I steal the lonely bicycle from your garage:
And I was your high school teacher for a week
While the rain melted the cages of your suburban harpies:
And they got up and spied
And spied upon the real world like a buffet:
And you grew older, tending to know older men from their
Various aircraft carriers—maybe even you spied one
The you even fancied to love until you decided that you
Had to look away and away—
Until you midnight happened that very September, while
All of your teachers were writing poetry except for the one
That never was—
And I right to you on this night approaching the first
Day of autumn—already the world is old and virtually
Defeated—looking for our heroes, I cannot say where
They have gone—I only know that they've taken
Their time to fend off the everyday monsters just so you
Can go to class tomorrow—following the shadows of
The football players you pretend to love.