I was still a child, or mostly so,
when he took me to the game
not because he liked football but
because that was what fathers
were supposed to do, he had been told.
It was freezing that day in the stadium
they called the Rockpile although
there were no rocks, just a few
chunks of its concrete shell
that had fallen off the aging stadium.
I loved that I got to go to a game,
came to love the team I saw,
but will always remember the chill
that frozen day, trying anything
to keep warm, anything to keep
from leaving early, even it meant
taking a sip from his flask
of Southern Comfort when he
wasn’t look at the game but at
the woman one row below us
for that he wished, might become
his playing field if I weren’t in tow.