Pelé Pelé Cosmo! Cosmo! –-beered shouts over the VW Thing’s roofless sides ping
into the Lincoln tunnel roar on the way back to Manhattan from the Meadowlands.
The soccer legend danced around New Jersey turf. No Chalaca. No goal even. But Pelé filled me—the whole stadium perhaps—with flickers of the world’s most beautiful game. Brazil’s World Cup sorcerer orbiting to North America, dribbling with favela tuned foot-work, bringing joy to Europe, South—and now North—America. A conquistador rising
out of the new world.

A registered jeweled pen,
gift of my son—another
Cosmo cheerleader—
a Montegrappa Italia,
with Pelé’s enameled name,
honoring the bicycle kick
he made famous—racing away
from the goal, flinging
one foot back, floating
upside down, reversing
conventional physics,
arcing the ball over heads,
past stretched goalie hands
into the visible welcoming
web—that momentarily nets—
an elusive, untamable sphere
of motion— like writers who
flip-flop, U-turn, bamboozle,
double-deal, hornswoggle.