by Caroline Riley
There’s a sports metaphor for everything:
the wind does its thing down the river
and the crowd goes wild. A grand slam
of a Sunday: lumpy pancakes for breakfast
as the day breaks open, twin-yoked, lucky.
Corn and Sugar, those American gods,
or mascots, depending on how you look at them.
Was it just this summer that I felt like a rookie?
Usually just answering the question
is best. Yes. My sister, on the other hand,
is the one who really knows how I feel
about dogs, the way we both sprint
tongues-out towards the fun
that could hurt us, how we share a luck
that means it usually doesn’t —
think me getting on the school bus jacketless
and the clouds parting — a bat’s-crack
of thunder — then it’s gone,
every year on our late-May birthday.
Caroline Riley is a poet and writer from Maryland. She holds an MFA in poetry from West Virginia University. She currently lives in Philadelphia, but continues to support the Washington Nationals.