by Tauwan Patterson
afternoon baseball awakens with the city in the west
pirates vs. marlins adorning the hanging television screen
around him
the day
leisurely stretches,
softly
it begins to
speak:
cars zoom by,
apartments rumble,
dogs shout good mornings at the sun
ke’bryan hayes steps up
to bat
knocks a sure footed
first inning triple
hit into right field
rounds one base,
then two, gone
with the wind
like his helmet
as he sprints towards parking
at third revealing
the tiniest neatest of ‘fros positioned
atop his dome like a crown
okay
sir,
we see you
keep our spirits alive
today’s gonna be alright
.
Tauwan Patterson is a Black + Queer Poet and recent graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. His work has appeared in online literary magazines Cool Beans Lit, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, and Muse-Pie Press’ Shot Glass Issue #41, and will also appear in the forthcoming Moonstone Arts Center anthology Which Side Are You On?!, the Winter Issue of Rise Up Review, Porkbelly Press’ Love Me, Love My Belly zine, the Rising Phoenix Review, the Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Amazine, and Arteidolia. With his poetry Tauwan aims to, in the words of the great poet and thinker Marcus Jackson, announce his freedom and presence. Making a sound that echoes in the end that says Tauwan Patterson. No more. No less.