SUPER BOWL PARTY
after Jeopardy, aired 2/1/2018
For those who know nothing of football, the option is this:
a bowl of soup the size of a kiddie pool, where guests ladle
servings of noodles to slurp or share. Imagine the bliss
of steaming cups, as snow outside drifts in the shade, well
short of the post. Far from Dallas, we’ve never heard of Landry,
and a shotgun has kept the nursing calves safe, the babe in a cradle.
That was yesterday. Today we party, and after the soup, the candy
or Girl Scout cookies appear. Perhaps a fondue, and beer or cider.
We break for commercials: the Clydesdales, puppies, the dandy
young men. She dubs them “fair catch,” the ones not denied her,
she, the life of the party, the one for whom penalties for cheaters
never offset. It’s game time: Monopoly, Catan, those dividers
of winners. Of Losers. The kids find grape-toned paint, in liters.
Those basement chants: We are the Purple People Eaters.
—from Poets Respond
February 4, 2018
__________
T.R. Poulson: “I found it amusing that the Jeopardy contestants didn’t even try to answer the football questions on Thursday night. This poem is in response to those missed clues.”
