By Patrick Swaney
Art: “Thinking of Japan” By Nicholas Skaldetvind

For weeks, it seems the television is tuned
to one college football game or another
that I am interested in only because
it is being played. There are problems
with football—money and violence,
for instance—that are sometimes the same
problems with life. But I watch more or less
uncritically because I learned to love football
from my dad, who loved football, and who is
for the first time not alive this bowl season.
Mostly these games, appendages to the regular
schedule, are acknowledged as falling
somewhere just short of meaningless. Still,
there will be a final score, a winner and loser.
All of it so obviously beyond my control
that I almost can’t believe I find myself
again choosing sides, cheering for an outcome
that either will or will not happen, for a moment
convinced that I can make a difference.

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Patrick Swaney is the author of Hand Over Hand Over the Edge of the World (YesYes Books). He teaches creative writing and literature at Catawba College. His writing has appeared in Boulevard, Conduit, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere.