Goal Posts

Later Fall afternoon
Scent of burning leaves
The boy in the backyard
Practicing kicking
Twenty yards away was the goal post
The one his father built
The boy set the football on the tee and concentrated
Picturing the ball spinning through the uprights
Just like his dad had taught him
He stepped back then forward one, two, three
Suddenly he stopped
He saw his father’s smiling face
When the two of them sunk the wooden posts into the ground
Working together
Why’d you have to leave?
Rattled now concentration broken
He bent to his task and tried anyway
He kicked the football
It went straight on through
Excited he turned to tell his father but no one was there
The painful reality sinking deep
His dad was gone
Still
More to the point
He was never coming back.