Foosball

Having played for maybe the third time
In twenty years, my wife can only
Giggle, flailing as she fails to snap and spin
The human paddles, trouncing me like Beatrice,
Her heroine in The Postman, that scene
Where Mario crawls in search of the ball
And she engulfs it with her open mouth.

We’ve left the highway for better than rest
Stop sandwiches and all through our chatter
In the tavern the guy with the fast-gun
Pick-up out front who mixes spirits
Stares impatiently, a matter of class,
Not elegance, social strata. I’m sure
He’s never seen Il Postino, this after all
The kind of quaint town one might call an island

Without water, where one hears foreign language
Just about never except from recent arrivals
Who have no choice, and foosball means
A half-lit gin joint, and victory unconsciousness
Or driving very fast for the hell of it
And maybe even dying like Mario
Except with no cause, only reasons.

Each exaggerated bump must lift the truck
On a radical cushion of air
As if its driver vies in a contest
Where the point isn’t rattling a ball
Around somebody’s slot but rising up,
Breaking free of the bar on one’s back
And leaving the field of play, refusing
To be a little man with no face.

                                —David Moolten