– The Cape Cod League
We sit behind first base, damp after we
scurried back to our car through a downpour
to wait out a rain delay. When the players
took the field, we followed, and we’re inside
a poem, grass a brilliant glow, two rainbows
arcing the sky as it softens to pink, the baselines
crisp and perfect. It’s celebration night
for Special Olympians who throw out
the first balls, go on to have a fine time
waving big blue foam rubber fingers.
Even though they’ve already played
the afternoon game of a double header,
the players, fresh and ready and lithe,
pull on resistance bands, stretch their arms,
rotate their cores. It’s possible the downpour
was a spa moment for them.
The Gatemen and Braves take the field,
two teams with hardly an ordinary name
among them: Logan, Finn, and Jackson,
AJ, DJ, RJ, Coen and Levi. Dylan Passo,
Dylan Dubovik, Sahil, Connor, Cooper,
and Michah, Justin Osterhouse, Austin Hawke,
Burke-Lee Mabeus, and Rustin Rydon.
After a lead-off homerun, a few hits, a very few,
it’s mostly a tight shut-out, the pitchers lanky,
strong, enduring at 93 miles per hour. I have to
know each batter, their height, weight, hometown,
college, while they dirty their uniforms sliding into first,
stealing second, or dropping to their knees to avoid
a wild pitch, covering my poem with dust.