Carl

“American Baseball

It's for real, not for practice, and it's televised,
not secret, the way you'd expect a civilized country
to handle delicate things, it's in color, it's happening
now in Florida, "This Is American Baseball" the announcer
announces as the batter enters the box, we are watching,
and it could be either of us

standing there waiting
for the pitch, avoiding the eye of the pitcher as we take
a few practice cuts, turning to him and his tiny friends in
the outfield, facing the situation, knowing that someone
behind our backs is making terrible gestures, standing
there to swing and miss

the way I miss you, wanting to be out
of uniform, out of breath, in your car, in love again, learning
all the signals for the first time, they way we learned the rules
of night baseball as high-school freshman: first base, you kiss
her, second base, her breasts, third, you're in her pants, and
home is where the heart

wants to be all the time, but seldom
can reach past the obstacle course of space, the home in our
perfect future we wanted so badly, and want more than ever since
we learned we won't live there, which happens to lovers in civilized
countries all the time, and happens too in American baseball when
you strike out and remember what the game really meant.”
― Tim Dlugos, A Fast Life: The Collected Poems