Girls Don’t Play Hockey

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It’s the Bridge Street gang in my ears as my daughter takes to the ice

in a rink in Vermont. When I was a kid, put your pads on

and come dressed and ready to play sounded like a girl’s game to me.

This was Bruins country, you could learn to fly like Bobby Orr,

cruise the slot like Phil Esposito where everything you touched scored,

bang away on the boards and come out swinging like Pie McKenzie,

taking on guys two or three times your size. Wear fake scars

on your mask like Gerry Cheevers, not real ones inside.

“Hey, hey, hey, I come to play hockey,”

it was the goalie, the Irish looking kid

with the Cape Verde name I can never remember.

He bellows it loud, like Fat Albert

and I want to smash his face, but I’m on the bench,

the stone wall we called a bench on Bridge Street

where we played street hockey in front of Murph’s house.

I watch Murph and Tippen rough it up, show off,

high stick, drop their gloves, and wail away at each other,

drawing blood. They stumble into Murph’s mother, dripping

snot and tears. She clucks and fusses, ices their wounds,

and I feel a chuckle come on, a laugh

I share with Eddie Shore, his ear in ribbons,

my nose smashed the week before, and I wouldn’t tell

whose hand was on the other side of the glove,

couldn’t tell or the game would end.

“Let her play.” It’s my Irish twin brother,

goalie for the other side. “Let her play.”

And I do, step off the bench, take my turn

time after time, and if I could’ve threaded a needle

as neatly as I could slip a wrist shot through the five hole

I would’ve made my Nana proud.

One day, I stopped being the girl who played hockey

and became the hockey player who was a girl.

There was nobody else like me then, but there must have been.

We’re sitting in a rink in Vermont and on either side of the red line

there are two whole teams of girls dressed and ready to play.

My daughter steps off the bench, taps her stick on the glass,

waving to me. I don’t want her to see me cry as I wave back.

The look she gives tells me she knows,

and I can feel Eddie Shore’s hand on my shoulder,

his ear neatly stitched as if he had done it himself.

My daughter spins to a stop, waits for the whistle to blow,

the puck to drop, the game begin.

Up here in the stands, away from the boards,

it looks more like ballet, more like the flight of butterflies