Colts Fan
Phil Estes

I don’t know why I hold Darrell’s ten-month-old son.
The kid grabs my Chiefs keychain
and puts the Arrowhead in his mouth.
Darrell starts up, “C’mon, Phil,
you’ll confuse the kid, I can’t lose him on football.
I gave in to Becky on the Cubs—
three Lou Piniella bobble heads watch over the crib.
Don’t take Peyton away; the Colts are all I have left.“

I broke the ball off of Darrell’s NES Action joystick
just holding the thing in my lap.
Once, I ruined a threesome for him.
Down from tequila and Dr. Pepper,
I lied out on his bedroom floor like a crime scene.
The two girls in his metal futon slept
on couches in the garage instead.

I expect the kid’s head, arms, and legs
scattered on the ground in shattered pieces.
Darrell would brush the pieces into a dustpan,
and I would slowly walk out of the backyard and close the gate.
He’d still yell at me while he tossed his son
into the garbage can. “C’mon,
Phil, you didn’t hold him right. I started to love the kid.”

But his son crawls on the ground, still in one piece,
the Arrowhead in his mouth.
“You should see him eat spaghetti, Phil,
looks like a mob hit.”

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