Because she’ll ask. She’ll want to know
if the team won. Not that she knows
the difference, but she knows
you want her to ask, and even if
you don’t want her to ask,
you expect she’ll ask because you expect
she expects you to expect her to ask.

So she asks. Did they win. Maybe she knows
by the look in your eyes, but if you’re home alone
listening, not watching, but listening
the way no one listens anymore, and if
you’ve been crying because baseball
sometimes makes you cry – if you’ve been crying
then she might have no idea
whether they’ve won or lost, because crying
goes both ways with baseball – if she sees
you’ve been crying she’ll certainly ask,
after she asks “What’s wrong?”, because
her first thought will be something’s wrong,
he’s on the couch crying, the radio is off,
the dog is snoring and he’s crying in the corner
of the couch, his drink is empty, just the bottom
of bourbon-yellow ice, and his eyes are red.

So she asks, “What’s wrong,” and you say,
“The game, that’s all.” You shake your head
and she shakes hers. “I’m sorry.” But you say,
“Oh no, it’s OK, they won.” “They did?” “Yes.”

“How?” She’ll ask how and you’ll tell her
as she buzzes through the living room
into her closet to strip from her pants and top,
a quick dance into house clothes, the pre-sleep wardrobe
of fleece on top of fleece for the Northwest’s fall.

“Well,” you say – you chink the ice around
in your glass and suck what’s left.

“They were down, you see, down by two,
then by one. They hung around. And in the ninth,
the big closer out for a save, he walks a guy,
hits another, the next guy pops out – there are
two outs now, see, and the leadoff guy…well,
that’s not important. A little guy – later, after the hit
it’ll be all set up for David and Goliath stuff.
But for the time, the little guy, before he turned
into David, took an oh-one pitch to the gap
in right. Both runners dashed home. That’s what
I imagine, at least, a dash – there are no dashes
on radio. Just swings and pops and the announcer
going crazy. All the dirt and dust gets swallowed
in the soft static. And you’re left with the win,
which is enough to make you cry, not because
you missed a thing, but because you sat and listened,
you never saw it coming and you knew all along.”


–

My good friend Ryan Mayers sent me a scorecard that I kept when he, Donnie Sabs and I took in a Cubs game a couple of seasons ago. My scorecards are usually a mess, and this was no different – a mix of hieroglyphs, scribbles and meaningless notes that only I could understand. Reading one from two-years ago was a particularly entertaining exercise, and it gave life to the following poem.

SCORECARD


The psychic in the bleachers calls a leadoff homerun
because of the wind and the hitter’s hot streak.
She twinkles her nose like a cartoon witch
and spooks her friends. In the second, a man
with a red foam finger misses the mustard on his chin.
Clouds look like dolphins in the third. A kid points this out
to his father walking back from the john. In the fourth,
fans wave the runner home on a two-out hit.
He’s out by a foot. It’s our fault when the manager gets tossed.
A foul pop in the fifth becomes a struggle for turf.
Flying popcorn. An elbow to the eye. In the sixth,
we anticipate the ritual of the mound trot,
the pitching change. When last call
and the seventh-inning stretch collide, my friend recalls
what Ken Burns said – that Jesus died in the on deck circle.
The sun ducks away long enough in the eighth to lose ourselves
in the slow loft of the wrong team’s deep fly. That’s when
dolphin clouds turn into whales, the sky opens with a quick
sad rain. The last rally fades in the ninth.
The ladies one row ahead cheer for their boys
like Little League moms. All claps and first names.

The following is poem number 9 of 2009’s NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days during the month of April. The original prompt was, “If you send me the right amount of cash, I can help you”. I deviated more with this one than any other so far – the initial writing involved a phone call, which is all that remains in the version below. Somewhere there’s a poem about a telemarketer waiting to happen.

CHICAGO

Remember getting drunk in Chicago after the game
when I called Soriano’s home run in the first?
You bet me a beer I couldn’t do it again. I tried
and bought. Then we got caught between bars

in Wrigleyville while a rain washed down. You told me
Claire was pregnant, you were scared shitless,
couldn’t stop thinking about other women,
not with the milk-fed Midwestern girls
busting out of Cubs shirts.

You bet me I wouldn’t say hello to the two
who smiled behind the next pub’s smoke.
After I did we talked about how easy it would be
to do something and forget, then called our wives
to say we missed them, couldn’t wait to be back.

We finished, caught the long train to where
we were staying, went out for last call
then fell asleep, woke hung over, got our flights
and split the country in half.

I was thinking about you right before you called
to say your girl was born. By now you’ve worked through
thoughts of leaving, the ones we all have,
even our fathers who never said.

Let’s be men like them, do the right thing when
we don’t know what it is, just work off
a list of do’s and don’ts, as easy as calling a shot
like I did that day in Chicago before we got drunk.

-

The process continues to unfold, and I’m discovering that revision actually means re-envision, which opens up the possibility of truly giving a piece new life, new form, etc. Earlier versions of the following three poems have appeared previously on the site, sometimes with new names, sometimes not, but generally in a completely different form.


Late in the Game

Smoke on the cliff beyond left field
where space between homes is vast
like continents adrift – I say fire does us in
before the next quake, but my father disagrees,
cites black holes and solar winds
as a foul ball careens off a seat a few rows back.

That, or the world goes on long enough
for the Dodgers and Giants to be neighbors
like when he and my uncle stole a car
and drove to Ebbets before teams moved west,
got in for a quarter or some nonsense
he reminisces as tonight’s game
slides out of hand, stands clear

and my father moves ten-thousand years
to the future because that’s how plates shift.
My mind drifts back to the smoke,
tumbles below where a kid reaches for a foul pop
falling toward bare hands, squeezes
around a dream like dust.

Dead Cat

Sprawled in the road still warm, the blood fresh
against your skull, l’d like to be
a hand for you, tongue to lick your wounds.
I dress you in my shirt, pat down fur
where I can, shut your eyes because
there’s nothing more to see, still glazed
from your view of death as it bore down.

A collar but no tags, let’s skirt the streets
door to door until we find your bed, bowl,
couch where you honed your claws.
I know, you were robbed, never got
your ninth life. No one does.

If the sun goes down and we still don’t know
your name, I’ll dig a plot – there’s a spot
in my yard, warm like mother’s milk.
You can sleep all night. Then
when you’re ready for your farewell pounce
scratch my door, head home.

Transfer

When the bus is tight like this
your best bet is to make friends.
Bob wears golf pants, a burnt
brown shirt. Says his legs hurt,
eyes too, and the meds
keep his head numb enough
to make it.

He’s a vet, asks me to guess the war
and nods when I reach Korea.
His wife’s dead but around he says—
hears a shuffle of feet,
sometimes the chimes out back
by the bees he keeps. At night
she’s the chair rocking through sleep.

When I offer she hasn’t transferred yet
he agrees. Some souls get stuck,
hers is too good for heaven or here
and why not?

Now my lap is her seat. Bob wants
to hold hands. Sure—we do
through stops, a few sneers from kids
soon off before Bob pulls the cord,
kisses my cheek.