Obstructed View: Love and Baseball –
an Ekphrastic Poem
The day the elephants marched through Corktown
and down Michigan Avenue, the crowds going wild
inside Tiger Stadium with Gibby at bat and us in our
obstructed view seats where we couldn’t see diddly
but what did that matter because we were crazy in love
and had eyes only for each other even though our
respective spouses and kids were there too, and God
knows I’ve never been much for baseball—too much
standing around—but that day I was giddy with the
thought of extra innings and though you were initially
a Padres fan, in the end, you were won over by the
Champions and though we left before the crowds tore
up half the turf for souvenirs, we followed the marching
bands to the bar, pumping our fists when some rowdies
turned over a cop car in the intersection, and later, much
later, someone saw us kissing under a street lamp but
what did that matter—at the time what mattered was the
heat of the moment and though I’ve not seen you for years,
and the stadium is gone, and no one who lives here can
afford a ticket, every time I hear the roar of opening day,
I fully expect to turn around and see you waiting to kiss
my eyelids; and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
whenever I hear the crack of a bat on my grandson’s team;
so, I am reminded what a thrill it is to actually win from time
to time and how love is in no way unlike a hot summer day
at the circus, or the voice of Ernie Harwell, long dead now,
over the radio and everyone cheering in the streets, revving
their engines, windows down, bare feet on the dashboard
as if we owned the world!