by Greg Friedmann
“The NFL Operates Like. Monopoly Which Forifies Systemic Racism”—Choice, February 9, 2023
*
Roman numerals: so perfect to enumerate our annual festival of gladiators. Modern pads and helmets make a man’s body a lethal spear; and yes, Roman coliseums also had luxury boxes. As ever, spectators make book on the combatants under their aegis, just as owners once wagered on dark-skinned men compelled to box each other, hate each other, on hot Sunday afternoons. Imagine, afterwards: the plantation owner, rotund, pink-flushed from heat, bourbon, and bloodlust, making his happy stumbling way to the barn, where Missy waits, as she must. He says he won’t sell her if she behaves; she waits, prays to be good. God must be in His heaven, he thinks, to have made the process of creating property so damned pleasurable.
*
Greg Friedmann's poetry has appeared in Sky Island Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, The Poetry Society of Virginia, Cagibi, Panoplyzine, Beyond Words, and other journals.
This one landed exactly where it needed to land