SPORTS ANALOGY

Even if there is no I in team,

 there is damn sure a me that never fails

to get lost in a relationship,

a me that sees love as Willie Stargell saw baseball:

a game where they give you a round bat

and throw you a round ball

and tell you to hit it square.

Which means love Lawrence Taylors me,

breaking me like Theismann’s leg, playing

chin music with each kiss,

submitting me with a guillotine she calls hugs,

and each conversation is a red flag the booth reviews.

When I drop back into a relationship,

Anderson Silva cringes. Allen Iverson once asked,

Practice?

in an interview that convinced fans he was selfish,

but I only saw a frustrated husband,

exasperated from driving around with his wife,

trying, no begging, to decide on where to eat.

If you have a little capital

I suggest you open a restaurant called

No Babe, You Decide.

An ex-athlete needs a place to pasture. I’ve come

home to so many empty apartments, half

a closet traded, that a missing couch’s indention

in the carpet is team ’Tinez’s logo.

A girlfriend once told me: Stop

hogging the rock, Hero. Get into pistols. See the ball.

It’s not five games of one on one

but one game of five on five.