Early Morning Lacrosse Practice

in Middlebury Vermont

 

It’s not my place to suggest

to your coach, she bus you

to one of our Addison County

 

farms. If you have to be in

the Field House this early,

you might as well see

 

what’s going on around you.

Not that far from your gym,

your dormitories. I mean the early

 

morning farm workers, preparing

the cows for another day.

Arranging them in their team’s

 

stanchions. Letting machines

paddle manure from their stalls.

Sucking it up into the honey dippers.

 

cucharón de miel.

What they call their shitkickers.

pateadoras de mierda.

 

They’ll drive later onto the frozen

fields. Letting it melt the snow.

Sweeten winter. Before they have to

 

amble out again next spring.

Ringing in another season.

If they still had bells to wear.

 

And could low in Spanish. Back

to their caretakers. Coaching them

to stand still in a milking machine.

 

Relieve themselves of their bags

of burden. By now, girls,

our championship women,

 

you’re likely to get the feeling,

there’s more to just getting up early,

going to practice. Realizing

 

what you’re here to win.

Clouds a breathe scores

when the air is zero. New fans,

 

these men and women, working

their jobs. Making a stadium of a barn.

Raising their trophies of milk and butter.

Gary Margolis

Cornwall