The Team of Disappointing Men
by Michael Brockley
At the misfits’ lunch table at your professional development
conference, you introduce yourself to a man who grew up in a dozen American cities and a woman who
earned All-State honors as a field hockey striker in Ohio. Over appetizers your group steers
the conversation toward a lament about disappointing teams. The Mets, says the traveling man. You offer the woeful Reds. She cuts her vegan lasagna into bite-sized cubes. Studies the
afternoon schedule, choosing between this
year’s empowerment lecture and a PowerPoint on malingering.
You never called the women you met at a restaurant named for a lazy
cartoon cat after you promised them you would. Once stood up a blind date to take her
best friend to hear Juice Newton moan Angel of the Morning at the Key Palace Theater to a crowd reliving one-night stands from thirty years ago. But the striker slices through a sorrow more grief than
grievance; a noxious cocktail of emailed erection snapshots and Instagram
betrayals. Like the youth pastor who slaps a newswoman’s butt as he jogs past her during a
benefit race for a battered women’s shelter. Like the man who awakens his stepdaughter to roll her
over into yet another depthless night.
For decades, you’ve ridden the bench on a team of disappointing
men, making yourself invaluable for all the positions you can play. Always eager with
a chuckle or a nod to hear how another woman breaks down. Like the striker at our table cutting
her lasagna. She never looks up. Says Men. Men. A man from your team left the dark silences that shadow the
striker’s eyes. A man very much like you.
Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in Panophyzine, New Verse News, and Flying Island.