EMILY DICKINSON AND THE BOSTON RED SOX

– October 27, 2004

In her white cap with the scarlet B
she watches the small color TV

(no flat-screen, plasma, or LCD
for her, she would have you know), and she

much admires the home team’s jerseys
and jackets, thinking, what a lovely

bird, the cardinal, at her feeder
that blur of passion, and how lucky

in a way – a strange way – they will be
now, those fans west of here, the trophy

so close … Unlike those poor Yankee
stalwarts, year after year, their routine

champagne and ticker-tape, how truly
deprived, not knowing what desire means.

In fact, she’s traveled to the city
only once, when she had that pesky

eye malady and went in to see
specialists at the Infirmary.

But first came the cab ride – her kindly
driver! – straight to Fenway, and the Green

Monster, a name she wishes keenly
she’d coined herself, for Spring, with the trees

out beyond the fences suddenly
looming … And it is only envy

that she feels now, eyeing the melee
on the mound, the grass thinning this deep

in Fall, for all the dumbstruck seated
there, mute, staring at the other team –

her team – leaping deliriously
with their improbable victory,

and all of that sweet joy already
slipping away so naturally.