new poem, part 2

LOVE LETTER POSTMARKED MICHIGAN AND TRUMBLE

    for my Detroit Tigers    

 

 

Even Abuelito, limping into the Loma

with a mistress at his hip

taught me to love the lost men

before I knew he was among them

 

to love them even more the further they went away

when one could only listen through the radio

in the driveway of the old house on Fairmont

 

losses stepping upon losses

like the bricks of the new ballpark.

 

Because I waited for you for years

 

and you couldn't even set the record

for most losses in one season

 

because that, in its own way, would be

a kind of win.

 

You have brought back high knee socks

and pants stopping just below the knee

 

and I learned to love you

the way every woman in my family

has learned to love any man

 

stumbling over the positives

("we were in almost every game")

 

waiting for next year

it could always be so much worse

as a friend says, we could all have one leg.

 

And yes, Jim Leyland is right, anyone can gauge

the prowess of a man

by the sound of the ball leaving his bat,

 

though Craig Monroe had been in the majors for years

before he found it, the sweet spot,

the spot where, my love, every pitch

is a weak ankle shattering.