Seven years old and can’t tie a shoe,
he grabs his mitt
and asks to shag flies.
The Little League championship
is on the line tomorrow.
“Throw grounders now, dad.”
He gobbles them up, whips ‘em back,
all gameface and dives a day early.
He struggles catching to his left, refuses
to just open up and stick his mitt
out to his left. He tries it
at last and of course it works—
his eyes go nova. “Again!”
And I throw it again & again.
I don’t tell him I’m going to
and I heave one high.
Later I’ll tell him that in baseball
you never know where the ball
will go so you have to be ready
for anything because you only know
that it will be pitched. You
have to wait, only knowing that
eventually the ball will take flight and
cruise like a Tomahawk
at a first-grader.
Eventually it all will take flight and
cruise like an asteroid
at you.
He squinted into the June sun.
He parsed cloud and maple leaf
and the pinpoint of baseball
falling,
period then iris then nickel then
baseball.
Then a cloud of dust
popped from his mitt
and drifted away,
swirling.
