Nonets

 

Xs and Os. We play and replay.
This game, so simple, does not end.
Hardly ever a winner.
I block you, you block me.
Why then the pleasure
Drawing our lines
Choosing sides
Once more
Cat.

Oakland. The 80s. The Bash Brothers.
The A’s at the Coliseum.
We were proud fair-weather fans
Clueless about baseball
Strangers in this land
Doing the wave
Then taking 
The BART
Home.

Your pregnancy, weirdly, starts counting
From the last day of your menses
And becomes a numbering
Of dreamnights, fatigue, hope,
Crackers, elastic,
Baby name books
“No kid yet?”
Then, boom!
Kid.

Playing bumper clouds in the ether
Me steering my nimbostratus
You hotrodding your cirrus
Angels jump to save their skins
Skywind on our face
When we’re racing
Feels like we’re
On cloud
nine.

At first you can’t hold them all at once
Dropping some, smashing one by chance
Till you become more careful
Cherishing what is left
Sifting them for clues
Till finally
You are down
To one
Life.

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