Dodgeball was called War.

We played the game so happily,

With such violence, black eyes,

Sprained fingers and wrists,

A ball snapped my head back 

And my body followed. Knocked

Out against the gym wall

I was so still my best friend

Ran crying to the nurse’s office

As the game continued.

What a gift, this wild, vicious game,

All of us little white kids in my suburb,

And only some of us knew violence

At home, the doors closed,

But here on the court

In a game we called War

We reveled in our primitive

Instincts to hit, to hurt, to survive,

To be finally alone, triumphant

On the wooden floor.

The nurse slapped me back

To consciousness and whatever

Dream I’d been having

Was lost forever.

Deborah Keenan is the author of ten collections of poetry, and a book of writing ideas, from tiger to prayer. She taught in the MFA program at Hamline University for thirty years, and now teaches privately and at The Loft.  Her two new manuscripts are The Saint of Everything and John Brandon’s Sentences. She lives in beautiful, mysterious St. Paul, and has been heard to say: hoops are my life.