Love Isn’t Blind

We warmed to each other
grading freshman
writing exams
in annual three-day grinds,
me admiring
her conservative dress
and reserved smile,
but also the migraines
that said she and I
knew, any second
the world could
come shaking down,
and everyone would
need someone to
keep things together.
It turned out, however,
she just had
a bad prescription,
and within days of
getting new lenses,
ran into a childhood friend
who proposed
the weekend before
I would have asked her out.

Balls

When they had
nothing better
for boys to do,
Our teachers
unlocked the bin
of basketballs
and let us at it.

Today, they try
to be kind
to the slow kids,
save them
a few good ones,
scuffing out
the bloody rush’s
only lesson.

————

Still car-less on Long Island, Gerald So currently edits The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly at http://poemsoncrime.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter @g_so, where he questions superhero physics and pop song lyrics.