One summer morning – when summer
meant baseball, stickball and fungo
until dark, then congregating
on stoops to listen to Dodger,
Giant or Yankees games
on someone’s transistor radio,
and talk and talk plays and players –
I was first in the schoolyard sun.
Yellow and blue would be my team
colors for the day. Pitching against
the chain-link fence and myself,
I toiled to squeeze a boomerang-
like curve out of my pink Spalding.
It was early. My life complete.