POEM FOR MICHAEL JORDAN ON THE FIRST NIGHT OF HIS RETIREMENT SEASON

I can’t help but think that it was
those crazy kids who killed your dad
who also made you feel uneasy about
sweating on TV in
front of the world and
future jurors and
even those who may
cheer at another dead guy,
another trial to watch in the
middle of the day because they think
there’s not much else to do
except blow on the charcoals of hatred
that the early primates left us in some
fireproof box inside our language.

My, how I wish your dad were alive
and eating from some fruit and coldcuts plate
looking down intently
from a Charlotte skybox
on the third quarter but
it’s this horror and violence, this
bloody sock and underwear called
evidence that leaves you
tending your investments
vacantly, making us all sad.

November 5, 1993 Bulls beat Hornets 125-123 in O.T.

© 1995 Daniel X. O'Neil