by Barbara Gregorich
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
The game could continue forever.
One night in Rhode Island
the Rochester Red Wings
face the Pawtucket Red Sox.
A fierce wind invades the stadium,
numbing fans and players alike.
Make this one quick, everyone hopes.
Lights generate no warmth.
Fans applaud, the game begins.
Six scoreless innings, then Rochester drives in
a single run. Bottom of the ninth,
the PawSox also score a single run.
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock. There are only
more chances. The extra innings creep
like icicles: tenth, eleventh, twelfth arrive
and depart with nothing but snowballs
to show: big, round, cold zeros.
At the end of eighteen innings
the score remains one-one.
The temperature drops to bathyspheric depths.
Players light bonfires in trash barrels,
burning broken bats as fuel. Fans go home
to furnaces that blast hot air.
Players long to go home, too, but first
one of them must cross home.
The stadium sells out of food. Clubhouse men
deploy into the frigid night and return
with chow the players bolt down. The game
goes on — four hours . . . five . . . six.
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
And then, top of the twenty-first inning —
Rochester scores a second run.
Hallelujah!
The game will, at long last, be over.
Completed.
No. Not meant to be.
Pawtucket also scores a second run
in the bottom of the twenty-first. Game tied,
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