by Robert Wallace
In his sea-lit
distance, the pitcher winding
like a clock about to chime comes down with
the ball, hit
sharply, under the artificial
bank of lights, bounds like a vanishing string
over the green
to the shortstop magically
scoops to his right whirling above his invisible
shadows
in the dust redirects
its flight to the running poised second baseman
pirouettes
leaping, above the slide, to throw
from mid-air, across the colored tightened interval,
to the leaning-
out first baseman ends the dance
drawing it disappearing into his long brown glove
stretches. What
is too swift for deception
is final, lost, among the loosened figures
jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where the poem has happened.
Copyright by Robert Wallace