Me at a Baseball Game

 
It’s bad enough that it’s American’s pastime (w/my awkward
relation to the anthem), it’s just so static and diffuse.
From the nosebleed seats, the square of illuminated green
and the slender pushpins of the players
look  like an infographic on small yields.
I strain to hear the crack of the bat,
the only true joy of the game for me, and the cheer
that rises from it like an explosion of pigeons.
The fate of the ball? Who cares, unless it tops the wall
an plops into McCovey cove (they’ve trained dogs
for their retrieval.) My mind is anywhere else:
with the boy who reads until the light can’t support

his escape, the family who buys a cyclone of spun sugar,
the gulls who circle waiting the crowd to leave
the dropped fries and pizza crusts.
If only a beer weren’t thirteen dollars.
The kiss cam has caused another divorce.
My love for Take Me Out to the Ballgame
is for my grandfather, and I try to sing in his voice
at the 7th inning stretch. What? Only the 7th inning?
 
 
 
 

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