[ POETRY]
This is Not a Joe Burrow Poem By: Casey Harloe
I love you the way people love Joe Burrow without ever following football previously, like a touchdown like a full stadium cheering or maybe a hot dog with extra ketchup, with a pride that is inherent, quiet, the kind for the city you were born in, almost automatic it seems, I love you and I’d shout that from a rooftop bar if you wanted me, if you didn’t believe that’s how much and might sing Al Green on karaoke sober and aware and embarrass myself or just stare at you, feel lucky, I love you like I love that house on the corner of Castle Hill, how sometimes I imagine us in it with kitchen utensils and Christmas lights, pine needles and Bublé from a Bluetooth speaker, with a lawn to maintain to mow in a bikini top when it’s August and hot and sweaty and miserable but god I love you in any month, in ways I don’t know, like the name of those orange flowers by every suburban mailbox that grow out of nowhere and are just there and no one questions, simply and wildly beautiful, and in ways I haven’t found yet, how I still end up lost on winding roads in my hometown that I didn’t know existed my whole life until I began driving down them with you,
6
BELMONT STORY REVIEW | FALL 2023
soft radio and air against the window, I love you anywhere, I don’t care, sitting under Applebee’s lights, over brew pub pretzels and beer cheese and baseball playing silently on the small flat screen, in mouthfuls and when I’m not paying attention, without trying, I could choke to death and still be smiling, I love you so crazy has it been a minute already
FALL 2023 | BELMONT STORY REVIEW
7