Two NFL Poems

#12 Josh Gordon, WR

The lack of an atmosphere, a planet
viewed against the blackness of space.
I didn’t choose to sleep at Taco Bell
or to nickname my mind a spiral of grape.
But I have no more walls to remind me
I exist. I am a rice paper balloon, a riddle
saddling up to every second fire. Tonight
I am doing this—the short, full lengths
of my mouth planning a trip to the sidelines,
& I see the love triangle happening between
three others, the roots working backward
toward early picks. Once we tied for the lead.
Once my mother rubbed words away with soap. 

#4 Randy Bullock, K 

Time to float in the world,
all five of your field goals— 

missed connections between sky & mourning.
It’s sixteen miles to try & be patient 

but look—the beginning of December
brings Jacksonville, all full of moondust, 

& failure is only an orchestra of vocabulary.
Nobody loses all the skyline & so we realize

our kings bounce off uprights, each falling
helplessly into a pool of muddied light.

---

Karissa Morton & Justin Carter live in northern Ohio with a hamster named Bridgette. They teach at BGSU where Karissa recently earned her MFA & Justin is completing his. Together, they run Poets on Sports, &, separately, are the editors of Revolution House & Banango Street (respectively). Some of Karissa’s recent work appears in The Indiana Review, Guernica, & The Paris-American; Justin’s appears in The Collagist, Hobart, & Ninth Letter. You can find them at justinrcarter.tumblr.com & karissamorton.wordpress.com.