by Patrick Hogan
Empty baseball field
Games of childhood played in lots
Tall grass makes me sad
Baseball, Age Five
by Van
Swing!
watching — eyes:
perfect,
brown bat
— swingng,
above brown dirt,
(above my bare brown feet).
The ball pops!
Whistling seams widen my eyes;
I hear my Dad (jumping off the mound).
He’s really twenty thousand people
cheering for me,
and my home run
(that went all the way over the dugout).
I round the bases
and he still hasn’t fetched the ball.
At the Apogee
By Ken Derry
The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign and out comes the lighter and with a flick and a dip the birthday cake is aglow and in the arms of the attendant with an enhanced chest followed by the power hitter with enhanced pecs, the guy no one likes, and everybody now happy birthday dear skipper and of course there’s the lefty bullpen specialist or whatever in the vestibule with a camo koozie and matching trucker hat hitting on the other very good looking attendant in fact look at that all of them are All-Stars that’s no coincidence because even in this day of time’s up I’m not here for you there’s still more work to do especially in the big leagues but we’re getting there and hey now batter up everyone’s got a chance the night before opening day and tonight’s flight is the time to feel good because tomorrow afternoon at about the time hats cover hearts for the rockets’ red glare comes the spotlight of expectancy right in the eyes but not now, right now this is the feel good express and the coaches they all feel it especially the hitting coach, guy thinks this is a seventies British rock band, and shortstop batting leadoff he feels it, mister happy peeking over the seat in front of him eyeing this curious celebration, and the dad-bod married guy with three kids what’s he even play now anyway left field now he’s two years postpeak and two years yet on his contract you know he’s hoping he can keep it together that long, oh but what’s that, did you see Arañita coming out of the can just now, looks like he puked his guts out, skinny guy with rubber arm and baconsizzle fastball, poor guy all the tools save location and he’ll lay it up for you, that cockhigh fastball and he knows he doesn’t have that tool yet that’s for the vets with meat on their bones, drives him to the can it does, but he’s a bet for the future that he can pull it together and turn in something nice, a good career, and isn’t that what this flight is, a manifest of all the hopefuls here together at once on board at six hundred knots and thirty thousand feet, an earthbound missile at the apogee still up in the clouds, trajectory of the bombs off Arañita, peanuts and Cracker Jack happy birthday to you.
Ken Derry is a former editor for the New York Yankees and has an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Some fiction credits include HAD, Danse Macabre, and The Carolina Quarterly.
Box Lunch
by Wayne F. Burke
Eager to get to the ballfield
in the morning
to play
baseball, what I lived for
1964,
I followed the Major League scores,
batting averages, and standings;
the rest of the world no more
to me then
than a nightly news show
like Vietnam helicopter
womp womp,
machine gun rat-tat-tat;
I fed on
daily box scores in the newspaper
each breakfast
and left the ballfield only
to return home
for a meal
and on days it rained
I read books about baseball…
A guy my uncle knew, who
played for the local high school, had
played two years with the NY Yankees.
Kiss
by Van
I remember rounding third once as if
all of America’s promise rode on my legs
There was a big commotion,
catcher, pitcher, gloves and a ball
were waiting for my pale legs.
I slid as slick as cupid’s bow
and scored lady luck’s run.
No kiss was so sweet.