To overestimate — my mother’s walker
folds like any good omelet. Anyone
could place it on the messy plate
of attention or loss or Medicare.

But tonight’s ruckus isn’t such,
rather a volleyball game for my niece
the orange-and-black of faux hornets
splashed back-to-back in the stands.

The final game of the season: senior night
and my mother still refuses to say
“I am old.” It’s hard and I understand
how having a body you spoiled

like an only child, won’t do what
you want. We are miles away from Boley
and the rodeos of slow time
and small town. We are where pride

seeks a cardinal direction: Southwest,
opposes the lived reality:
North Tulsa, Northeast Oklahoma,
the compass deluded beyond

all magnetics. Once a year we manage
to gather ourselves here, sliding
like an oil slick across Rt. 66
tunning our twelve-bar blues to the radio

dial in our eye: everywhere I see
history begging to be left alone
to wander like a rail hopper
ignoble and without shelter, to sleep

in the straw like a messiah
in a manger. The oxtails and lamb
chops are keeping time
on the grill so I sing of smoke

the truest school song: poof
and the days are gone.