A lefty,
with bulging muscles
of terror,
for those unfortunate
enough to be playing
on the other side
of the net.
So strong,
it is said,
his top spin was
clocked at three
thousand revolutions
a minute.
No one else
in the pro game
came close.
I once ranked high
in the amateurs.
With his speed of ball,
playing him
would have been
less play,
than chasing
after a sphere
expelled
from a tornado.
So fast did the ball
come at you,
you hardly had time
to swing.
So fast,
you spent
most of the time
running deep
into corners,
that left you
breathless
after each point.
And he hardly
taking a breath.
Against Federer’s
eternal calm,
his face
was a study
in rictus,
every point,
so it seemed,
a matter of life
and tennis death—
a lost point
he should never
have lost.
Only late
in his career
did a smile grace
his face.
Was he letting up
a little,
I wanted to ask.
He had reached,
as I saw it,
another plain
of happiness,
where few
tennis angels
perched.
Rafa,
I might have
hated to play you,
but damned
if I didn’t love
your game.
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.
