✦ HAIL MARY (STAUBACH FIELD) ✦

texas stadium, january air, a prayer with laces

fourth quarter—

the field stretched
like a question
no one can fully answer

defense closing in
like a tightening jaw

time—
already halfway gone
before you admit it

✦

Roger Staubach
in the pocket

not calm—
but decided

there’s a difference

✦

you don’t reach for god
when things are clean

you reach
when the math breaks

when the routes dissolve
into bodies and chance

when the plan
has already expired

✦

he steps—

pressure folding
from both sides

green closing
white threading

the whole stadium
holding its breath
like a lung
refusing to collapse

✦

no precision left

only trajectory

✦

he lets it go

eyes closing—
not in ignorance

but in release

✦

the ball climbs

higher than reason
higher than design

a brown orbit
cut loose
from intention

✦

downfield—

hands gather
like a congregation

waiting

not knowing
if they’ve been chosen

✦

contact—

a flicker
a deflection
a rearrangement
of what was supposed to be

✦

touchdown

not engineered

received

✦

after—

they ask him
what that was

as if language
could hold it

✦

and he says

i said a hail mary

✦

and just like that—

the name sticks

like resin
on the history
of desperate things

✦

now every last-second throw
carries a whisper
of that moment

that admission

that sometimes

you do everything right

and the final move
is still

faith

✦

not clean

not controlled

but sent

anyway