Coach Turner’s Eulogy

                 Bob Zordani 

This cemetery faces the high school
parking lot where Johnny Ralph McPhearson,
the best quarterback Ashmore’s ever seen,
kissed his girl Kelly Culp and, like a fool,
squealed up the street as fast as fast could be.
He dodged the Jackson twins at First and Main,
then shot across the tracks and beat the train
with fifteen yards to spare, at least.  Kelly
squeezed Johnny Ralph’s athletic thigh and cheered
him on as if it were a Friday night
and he was scoring under hometown lights.
It was then the tire blew and J.R. veered
into his daddy’s hulking Blazer’s path,
which puts us down by three—how sad the math.

                           ***