[Shortlist]
Dad says, The Jets are the underdog. He & my three brothers
form a defensive line in front of the black & white television set.
I am nine, the youngest & only girl
& I know the rule: football is for men & you do not fuck
with this rule, you wane, as Mom has.
Mom has taught me to break rules. Mom is an activist —
used to be — in the Civil Rights, Peace & Women’s Movements.
She came home after the Chicago riots & had a heart attack.
Now she rests, is de-activated. Mom teaches me
that to challenge authority you have to test power,
which I do every time I stick my toes into the ocean
to see if it is cold & if there is a rip tide to pull me
under, swim anyway—
which is why I know I can break the rule & watch football.
I want to break the rule & outrun nature from my femaleness,
become the fifth season — spring, summer, fall, winter, & me —
with new weather new temperatures new palettes.
I sit down on the olive green carpet.
Dad & my brothers do not protest or say anything at all: I am waned.
Their inertia does not eclipse the gravitational pull to concentrate
on the screen & watch the football players pass/block/run, convey yardage.
They seem born to the turf, fused with the quantum mechanics of the stadium.
When I grow up, a humpback whale will be found in the Amazon
when it should have been swimming in Antarctica.
When I grow up I will walk in my man skin in public spaces
with narrow hips & broad shoulders to feel powerful & fused
& I will learn it is ineffective as it is only pretend
& that no one is safe outside their ecosystem.
Not even football players.
It is late in the game when the big bang comes, a singular
explosion. My dad, three brothers, the stadium erupt.
The announcer’s voice beams, radiates, as though Man
landed on the moon — 16-7 Jets —
the most memorable upset in NFL history
& I am there, at its conception.
Header photograph © Sarah Huels.
Helene’s poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in, Pithead Chapel,The Rumpus, Tiny Flames Press, The Hopper, JMWW, Hip Mama, Centennial Media’s Female Mind issue, among other publications.
She is the 2019 recipient of The Stark Poetry Prize in Memory of Raymond Patterson. Helene is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at City College of New York.