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Father and Son

by Mark Shoenfield

On a warm June evening in my 54th year
my 16-year-old son asks me to hit him fungos
my diminished prowess clearly states
who is the coach and who is the player
I hit rainbow fly balls to his left and right
he sprints lithely, with grace, speed and
determination after the cowhide spheres
arcing to earth
sweat glistens on his brow and mine
I see the present and past collide in
intergenerational confusion
vicariously reliving the simple uncluttered
pleasure of pure pursuit
to test one’s physical limits against time and space
I loft one hope and challenge after another
into the twilight
and my son gives his all in the chase
he is not consciously aware of the metaphors
of this exchange
my inner delight is immense in this physical
give-and-take
the baseball tossed from my hand to bat to sky
to be snared in his glove and thrown back to me
the pattern repeated over and over
caught up in this rhythmic dance,
wishing time would pause in this magic moment
of ordinariness
I humbly acknowledge that life doesn’t get any sweeter than this

 

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Joe DiMaggio

by Michael Ceraolo

I said mostly nice things about him when we were alive,
but there’s no reason to pretend anymore
Ted was probably a better hitter,
but he couldn’t carry my jock as an all-around player;
no one could
And that made me a kind of American royalty:
everyone from Presidents on down
all wanted to associate with me
And I obliged them
as long as they paid for everything
or otherwise kissed my ass
If they stopped doing either, they were gone.

 

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The Game From Different Angles

by John Grey

The kid’s seated on the bench.
His father’s standing in the rickety bleachers.

The kid’s team is trailing by a run.
The father’s screaming at the coach, the umpires,
everybody on the field and in the stands,
to put his boy into the game.

The kid’s small.
Others his own age
are from Brobdingnag
by comparison.
He can barely swing a bat.
His fielding’s more confusion
than skills.
And his pitching arm’s
as limp as lettuce.
And, besides, he despises baseball.

The kid’s praying the coach doesn’t look his way.
The father’s yelling won’t let up.

So the kid’s happy on the bench.
But misery can’t keep his mouth shut.

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, and Red Sox fan, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books — “Covert”, “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” — are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

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The Tigers (for William Blake and Willie Hernández)

by Ron Riekki

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, (due to all the stadium lights)
In the forests of the night; (as that’s what turf grass looks like)
What immortal hand or eye, (like Kaline, Al, and Cobb, Ty)
Could frame they fearful symmetry? (but Fleer and Topps will always try)

In the distant deeps and skies of Palmer,
I’d play baseball to keep me calmer
and it was the same with my father,

he was fatherless, except on the diamond,
where coaches turned us into pitchers and linemen
and point guards and goalies in a town of mining,

where we’d forget about hematite and iron ore
in the bliss of 1945 and 1984,

and 1935 and 1968,
the years where all we did was celebrate,

like both the sky and our insides were bright as uranium
and in 2022, as a vet, they honored me at the stadium

and Detroit Tigers, you are always burning bright
in the forests of the night

and I held my hand to my heart that night
where I got to feel what being honored is like.

Thank you, Detroit Tigers.
Thank you.

Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Mychael Danna’s “It’s a Process” from the Moneyball film score.

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Strike Zone

by Thomas O’Connell

Drawn with chalk, stolen
From a classroom

On the windowless
Side of a brick building

Four almost straight lines forming
A rectangle, whose magic

Only Pythagoras and a nine year
Old would recognize.