Quarterbacks & Homecoming Queens

He’s holed up in the weight room
he lifts like a machine
she’s holed up in the bathroom
she polishes her preen

It’s Anywhere, America
forever seventeen
and everybody’s heroes
are quarterbacks, homecoming queens

They know how laugh politely
golden chain around their throat
always know some little secrets
that the rest of us just don’t

Playing catch with freckled kids
braiding heads of little girls
bored with everything we want
dreams of water tower worlds

Any given Friday night
any field of dim Holsteins
pickups flying through the black
with quarterbacks, homecoming queens

Trying hard to be so good
intentions pave the way
holding doors and thinking
daddy’s barn is full of hay

Some kids play in marching bands
some just can’t find their place
some wear someone else’s clothes
a tense uneven face

Might get smiles from their folks
and letters from the deans
But they never go to parties
with quarterbacks, homecoming queens

The smart kids all go off to school
the simple tend the store
and the ones that fall between them
either go for less or more

While some are frozen where they stand
in jerseys, skirts and jeans
with the quick and easy smiles
of quarterbacks, homecoming queens

Always and never are two words
a person ought not say
but time’s got this way of winking
makes you look the other way

He still holds a record somewhere
petals pressed into a book
they might tell you all about them
but can’t get themselves to look

Each play from twenty years ago,
each pump fake and cutback,
every time she called out
from a stool on the track,

Every dance he asked her to,
the movies that they missed,
each touchdown and tiara,
and each stolen summer tryst

Live behind the eyes somehow
they’re never far away
and probably were nice back then
but mean much more today

And when I pray I thank the Lord
my blessings did not ring
with speed or strength or with a face
that ever launched a thing

And then I say a quiet word
across the flood-lit greens
for heavy heads in paper crowns -
for quarterbacks, homecoming queens.