OPENING DAY II

A blouse opened, falling to the ground
a moment before all the fuss begins
a promise of a long rolling season
on Opening Day: A championship
brown leaves falling on Riverside
white cake in Chinatown
at that bakery on Mott Street
in Five Points
where the ancestors took
tenement stairs two
at a time
after the hunger
the railroad, the triangle
fire, they sat down together
to white cake in Chinatown
where most of the line drives
bounced fair, the ump waving his
arms, bellowing, squatting
like a Manchurian master to make
the call; boys and girls together
bewitched by the baseball sound
and the white cake of Chinatown.