Tennis Scapegoat by Ethan Goffman

I suck at tennis
Diving for loose balls I plunk them clumsily against the net.

Springing forward to unleash my killer backhand,
I splotch the ball against the edge of my racket
Miraculously, it wheezes over the net,
to the great glee of the slobbering giant
who waits on the other side
smashing a killer blow.

I suck at tennis.
Why do I keep at it?
when I could stay at home,
watching from a safe distance
the magnificent champions born to play the game
and remain
a safe distance from my ineptitude.

Isn’t that the American way?
Hours upon days gawking at the dazzling professionals
dancing like angels across the court
while you slouch on a couch
growing a killer gut.

I suck at tennis;
I provide a useful service
heroic almost
to the weekend warriors
who can feel, just for an instant,
that they are part of a line of greatness
Borg, Navratilova, Federer, Serena
wielding their battle axes
striking another killer blow
against another hapless challenger.

There is no Hercules
without a hydra
no Beowulf
without a Grendel
no Rama
without a
demon king.
Villains are the deep heartbeat
of history and myth!

Still I most resemble
that shuffling goblin Gandalf kills without a glance
On his way to battle the Nazgul.

No one is a hero
without someone they can slay
No champ without a chump.

I provide a useful service
as an extra
in a cast of thousands.

I am a tennis scapegoat.  I exist for a reason.

Still on rare occasions I surprise.
Somehow my desperate lunge
sends the ball bouncing off the cord
careening to the other side at an angle
impossible to return.

For an instant I am a champion
Game, set, and match!

Ethan Goffman accidentally

became a poet by tagging along with his wife, the far more talented, harder

working, and prettier Marianne Szlyk, to poetry workshops.  He is still not sure how, but somehow his poems have

appeared in BlazeVox, Mad

Swirl, Madness Muse, Ramingo’s

Porch, and Setu.