When you were seventeen,
you couldn’t be beat
in any pool hall in the county.
Fifty years later—Dizzy’s Lounge,
Christmas Eve—you took
your snooker cue out of its case,
screwed it together and ran the table.
Sometimes I strike fierce with the breaking cue,
the way you showed me. Hold my shooting
arm still, hinge and swing at the elbow. Sink
the trick behind-the-back shot.
I never get better. Yet each game I play
is a tribute of sorts, a set of small prayers
recited in bank shots, a breath of blue chalk.
Just enough backspin to rewind the years,
beat the scratch and pocket the eight ball.
The MacGuffin, Spring 2024