A fierce moon at the window hunting boys.
An attic room my brother shared with me, the good warmth
diving under quilts on winter nights, four steps
from the bucket to the bed.
And laughing in the dark at how old goalies
held their sticks, all knuckled up, and how they combed their hair.
I’d tell Mitch that he was mental playing goal,
but always help to scrape the ice before he played.
Then stamp a flat spot on the bank behind him, changing ends
when he changed ends. “Terry, keep your fingers off the screen,”
he’d warn me, once he’d kicked the puck away.
He clasped his hands behind his head (they said),
behind his desk at work that day and stretched and yawned,
content (he’d shut out St Vitale the night before and he’d seen
Corinne Wynick in the crowd), and smiling, cocked
his head to make a final point (they said),
half rose, and then pitched forward on his face.
All those nights I’d hear him
in his sleep. Stay low, stay forward, balance
on a ball. Forget the names they sing you through the screen.
See the shot before it leaves the stick.
Such preparedness, I’d lie awake and think.
And so I got accustomed to the view from here.
You watch them come at you in waves
and watch them fly away. In my dreams he plunges
after the puck, then turns to find me grabbing at the screen.
But now it’s me who’s bending low and looking for
the bullet shot. All my life, I’d heard the warning
in his voice and in the moment’s heat
I hear it yet.