ROOTING FOR A LOSING TEAM

Baseball is a cosmic game of Chutes and Ladders.
Year after year I find myself
at the bottom of the slide,
my legs splayed, my stomach churned,
sitting in a heap, wondering,
if in my lifetime, I’ll ever climb to the top.
Once, twenty-seven years ago,
my Mets defeated the Red Sox Nation,
but since then it’s been a Biblical drought,
a Dust Bowl of dried up dreams
with the realization there is
nothing growing down on the farm.
I can only watch the current crop,
and writhe in exquisite agony
with my only stalk of hope –
believing next year will bear better fruit.
Rooting for a losing team actually fortifies me,
in that I am not quite alone in living
the descending arc of my life.