After the shirts and mud-stewed shoes became goal posts, we agreed that the four borders of our soccer field would be as follows: 1) the lake, with an inverse stadium of cheering fishes happy to carry us on victory laps with fin tips and splashing fanfare or swallow the soccer ball whole like a lapping papparazo. 2) the cabins, shielded by the invisible, invincible force field of Grandma's Napping. 3) the neighbor's underbrush, where bare feet went to pick up trouble like old beer bottles, or a corner kick from the biggest cousin. 4) the future, which at the time barely stretched to sloppy joes at supper and which would only seem like a dumb idea later, after we all spent twenty years tromping around in it, looking for the end of a soccer game.
