We were just leaving football practice when
the delivery truck pulled up to the gym.
The driver casually said I got
some boxes. I’ll leave ’em in the office.
They were cartons full of hooded sweatshirts,
Hornets logo emblazoned on the front.
Billy pulled up his dad’s station wagon,
a big Chevy where we loaded the shirts,
thinking of how much we’d make selling them.
The next day just before Period 1,
Coach announced he wanted to see us Now!
He sat us down near his gray metal desk
and said, Sell the sweatshirts?! You idiots!
Get them back here right now and get to class,
the vague shine of a twinkle in his eyes.
is the author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall (Antrim House Books), and After the Bell and Hallelujah Time! (Big Table Publishing). His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The New York Quarterly, American Life In Poetry, Chiron Review, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Passages North, The Spoon River Quarterly, Poet Lore, The Connecticut River Review, Freshwater, Boston Literary Review, and many other publications.
John has read at many venues throughout Connecticut, including The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, RJ Julia Booksellers, and the Arts Café Mystic; and his work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. He is currently an adjunct professor of English at Manchester Community College. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, Connecticut.
johnlstanizzi.com