By Mark Williams

Saturday night, fourth quarter underway
of a close Packers game. Bart Starr era.
My dad and I were sitting on the couch
in my Grandma Mabel’s apartment.
My legs barely reached the footstool
that my great-grandmother and I
played Chinese Checkers on. But that night,
I was watching football with my dad.

He played left end in high school.
Leather helmet. No face-guard.
When I was seven or eight,
he bought a white football
so we could play catch in the dark.
He taught me how to throw a spiral.
Fingers here. Thumb there. But that night,
I was watching football with my dad.

It must have been near seven o’clock,
Vince Lombardi on the sideline, when
we heard footsteps coming down the hall.
It’s time for the Welk show! Grandma shouts
before she, my great-grandmother Torsie,
and my great-aunt Pauline entered
the room like an offensive line. That night,
my dad and I stopped watching football

so they could watch Lawrence (an’ a one,
an’ a two . . . ), his Champagne Music Makers,
The Lennon Sisters, and Myron Floren
as, no doubt, Jim Taylor went for ten
and Max McGee went deep. I never played football,
though sometimes when I think about the past
I feel like I’ve been hit. But on nights like this,
I am watching football with my dad.

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Mark Williams‘s poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, One Art, Nimrod, and other journals and anthologies. His poem, “The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest” appeared in the New Ohio Review, 2018 Summer Exclusive. He is the author of the poetry collection, Carrying On (Kelsay Books). His fiction has appeared in The Baffler, Eclectica, Cleaver, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Evansville, Indiana, where he also watched football with his dad.