How He Sees Me

By Matt Miller

What leaves left in the maples crackle
to brown dust in the breeze and the sun
seems always sideways since we all rolled
the clocks back and there’s something grim
in the green Astroturf of this football field
as I stand on the sideline, at practice, talking
to one of my players who has a torn hamstring.
I tell him I can still feel my tear, when it’s cold
like this, that window shade snap in the back
of the leg 30 years ago. Watching drills, he asks,
What hurts the most? And I know that he means
what of my flesh and form is an ache that never
goes away. Suddenly, I see how he sees me, old,
that I must hurt everywhere and not just some
somewhere, like him, snug in the fleeting sting
of youth. What joint, what ligament, what bone
bent wrong long ago groans me into every morning?
Maybe he sees what’s to be. Maybe he’s watched
his own dad stumble up a step because of a knee
that doesn’t want to bend. So, I tell him nothing
really hurts that much. But I don’t believe even he
believes the grin through which I tell him this
as we look back at boys launching their bodies.