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Saturday, November 12, 2011

NUMBERS IN THE ATTIC


The flashlight goes dim, I smack it on my palm.

Too dark in the attic for shuffling through bins

to switch out our summer and winter clothes.

I find a box of ornaments and there’s the tree.


When I open the last bin, I take a knee for a

moment to pull out my son’s soccer jerseys

I find the lemon yellow 47, a strange number-

guess they don’t think much about it at four.


They’re all in here, I wouldn’t throw them out.

Each new team named after a soccer nation-

Team Chile, Team Poland, and Team Austria.

There’s a white 11, a couple of 10’s, a few 13’s.


He switched to 25 when travel team began.

A number 17 for middle school and now 7 for

the last few years, a “real soccer number” we say.

It’s sad to think about a day that’s coming soon.


We’ll remember the hours of practice each week,

bitter cold nights, hot summer days, weekends.

I wonder what we’ll do when I put the last jersey

in this bin and push it into the darkness of the attic.

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