You tell me of a fight from your youth
Back when you were my age, before you were a father
As we drive home through a snowstorm.
There were six of them, and six of you,
An even match, but you didn’t want to fight,
So before the first punch, you said to their ringleader,
“Hey, we can have this fight. But just know
That all six of us are going to go after you, and only you.
All six of us are gonna stomp your face in.”
And the ringleader backed off because he wasn’t stupid,
And there was no fight.
The ice crunches below us.
Our tires skid on the road, and we end up sideways in the intersection
The light turns red, and traffic skirts around us.
“Just stay calm.” You tell me.
“Just stay calm.”
Jamison Conforto is an award-winning poet and fiction writer. He grew up among the fields and mountains of the Salt Lake Valley, where much of his work was inspired. Conforto’s literary work has appeared in Spare Change Literary Magazine, Lupercalia Press, The America Library of Poetry, Exposed Bone, and Eber and Wein, among others. His poetry collection “Antelope Boy” received recognition at the Sigma Tau Delta Centennial Convention held in St. Louis, and in the 2024 Utah Original Writing Competition held by SLCC. He served as a poetry editor of Southern Utah University’s undergraduate literary magazine for their 2024 edition, and graduated from that university with a degree in creative writing later that same year. You can follow his poem-a-day writing journey on Instagram at @the_year_365_in_365.
Featured image by Max Fuchs on Unsplash.
