The Game

 

By

 

Roy Morrison

 

 

Before the game, my son Sam unfurling slam dunks from a N.H. snow bank with almost simian grace and a teenager’s impossible defiance of geometry.

Before the game, teaching the seventh grade lessons about Tikkun Olam and a world repaired just so through  good works

Before the game, perfection braided into a skein of apprehension waiting, a sunrise impatiently trying to peer over the horizon.

 

After the game, the universe riven, an unbridgeable chasm filled with somber  resignation, perfection become irredeemable failure.

After the game, loss resistant to amends and to the most persuasive if only’s, and should of’s amidst accusations of betrayal from the heart pierced suffering.

 After the game, a counter-narrative slowly appears, the certitude of grassy knolls and shadowy figures yields slowly as the ice melts to hope of perfection  in the return of what is again soon to come.