At first,
she’d string teeth across evergreens
and sew strawberry patches across knees.
She refused to answer series of questions,
but was always willing to shoot the breeze.
Baseball statistics and devilish details–
averages, RBIs, and times at bat,
were her calling. The devil’s in the details,
she’d insist as her fingers traced diamonds
in the night sky. On the night before she piled
everything, including cans of tuna, frozen
wieners, and baked beans, into a pick-up,
wooden bat across her lap, balls between her
knees, and sang Vienna on the front lawn
at a decibel I’ve never been able to replicate,
I finally summoned the courage to wager.
Cautioning the Jersey Devil not to swing
and stepping over a pigeon hoping for out-
of-bounds feed, I placed a bet on the stars,
from dwarfs to All Stars, and that’s when she
threw her best fast ball. The teeth, neatly
strung, were never ours, but instead collected
from the local stadium after dark. Watch
for curve balls, she barked as lighting struck–
not once, but twice. One pitch short of a strike
out. Again. A perfect pitch, she called, revved
her engine, then pulled at the strung teeth
as if they were a light switch. OFF. Time
for my second inning were her final words.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME