The Lonely Goal

The boy couldn’t remember
it not being there,
precisely when his father had
bolted the backboard
above the garage door,
attached the rim and
through loops in its bottom
feathered fine nylon cords
that would make a satisfying
swishing sound when a ball
cleanly found its mark.
It was like a living thing
that had simply sprouted up,
a perennial in the garden
of a young boy’s life,
always awaiting him
behind his house,
content to accommodate him
at his pleasure,
beckoning him to come to it
and hide under its protective wing
as his mother lost her mind,
as she and her father fought,
as he felt alone in the world,
as he sought time to think.
He spent countless hours
in its company,
playing whole games in his head,
shooting at it repeatedly, a metronome,
the only rule that
before he went through the gate
and back into the house
he had to make his last shot
and say goodnight.
But as his youth went by
the boy grew up and,
on the puff of a summer breeze,
left home and left it there
awaiting his return.
A score of years passed
before he saw that village again
and his old friend,
still waiting but covered with rust,
but no ball was to be had
so he bade it goodnight
without making a last shot.
Thirty more have slipped by,
the old man hasn’t returned
and probably never will,
and when people ask
of his bucket list
he says he has none,
but he wishes he could travel
back in time to where
that goal might still stand,
a lonely sentinel of the past,
awaiting him yet
to make that last shot
and say goodnight,
goodbye.