Karl’s Lucky Fuck You Tie

Karl’s Lucky Fuck You Tie

He wore the tie twice, once for each year
I was on the high school team;
once for each game we played away against Farmington,
who was apparently our rival, denoted by the fact
those were the only games in which an
ambulance was parked outside the rink.

In a diamond shape the letters sat,
strategically arranged, the pattern uniform from knot to base,
not calling attention to themselves, until,
in his locker room speech, Karl made it known: 
Boys, tonight I’m wearing my lucky Fuck You tie.

In the first season on the team, I, a junior,
looked around as the sagely seniors snickered, in on the joke;
sensitive to the information gap, Karl walked around t
o each one of us, at this point mostly dressed in
our mostly plastic armor, extending the tie under
each of our anticipating noses, and the secret message
revealed itself to each one of us, causing a
snicker and a sense of imperfect solidarity.

And that year, we played to victory,
powered by the fortune of a textile profanity,
Karl never too quick to congratulate, walking into the locker room
as we de-iced and de-robed, the melting snow on the rubber
floor causing him to comment, It’s like a fucken bukkake in here.
Only I laughed. 
I knew someone had to know it, he said with a smile.

It seems, though, that luck has to run its course,
even with worded neckties, for my senior year,
when again he circled the room and demonstrated
to the underclassmen, we skated with gusto to no avail, the
goal I scored (only the second in the tenure of my youth),
being the only indication that we were there,
Farmington’s reaction being to respond with six.

The saving power of the tie being lost, he sought a
source of blame, and so the referees, whose
poor judgement in Karl’s eyes, received no dearth of
heartfelt criticism, the most resounding example of which,
immediately before his expulsion from the game
(and which would gain for him the eternal respect of his players),
saw him screaming between plays,
I don’t mind getting fucked,
as long as there’s a little love.