Steven Hovater

Category: Free Verse

  • Huddle

    The whistle blows and the bodies
    Shift, settle, relax.
    For a moment there is
    stillness,
    reflection,
    assessment.
    They untangle the chaos so there may be
    measurement.
    Perhaps celebration.
    But most of the time the celebration must wait,
    there is more work to be done first.
    So they return to their side of the line,
    The new line,
    and join the huddle.
    There they gather,
    to hear the play-call,
    a code that will arrange their bodies,
    determine the set of rehearsed movements.
    In the huddle there is potential,
    ambiguous only for a last moment,
    before the truth will come out.

  • They Came From

    A day of long meetings,hours gazing into computer screens,competitive offices and tense meetings,projects with deadlines, orquotas needing to be filled.They came from soccer practice,from the field and its gloryor the parking lot,where the August sun drains the life out ofmoms in minivans.She came from a lonely home,from an easy chair that sitsin front of a droning television,next to an end table with an empty coffee cup,and a phone that never rings.They came from homework,chapters underlined and blanks filled in,some of them right, some of them wrong,some left undone,waiting to be turned in for approval.He came from the worst fight,(or at least it feels that way),that he’s ever had with his wife.Tomorrow’s might be worse,might be the one that ends it all.And here they all are, together.Though they are alsoin those places, still.