new poem, part one

SIX THINGS

    for Tim, suggesting I make a list of ten things I truly believe

 

 

I believe in Bobby Higginson

the working class hero

my father who rises every morning

before it is morning

to hurl watt after watt like lightning bolts

from the open blisters of his palms.

 

I believe in being five

my father teaching me to throw

in the backyard/ our house on Crescent Avenue:

sidearm

hard

almost no arc on the ball

watched it tail

as a ten inch comet

to my father's open mitt.

 

I believe in drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon

between innings

bruise like a lunar eclipse on one thigh

being knocked unconscious

waking with the ball still in my glove.

 

I believe in protecting the plate.

 

I believe in falling in love

with baseball players:

the way a man's quadriceps change

when he is crouched behind the plate

the certain perfection of a

fundamentally sound swing

the feathery gradations infield dirt makes

on home jerseys;

 

the way a man watching a ball

orbit

into the upper deck of right field

arms stretched

bat as an arrow

seems ready

to impale the stars.

 

I believe in the light

created by a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball

Zumaya hurling pitches

that pass in a blur of seams

red giant:

flames flaring up one wrist.