“One Summer”
We were twelve in ‘61
and counted Roger’s homers
as he chased the ghost of Babe
from a past we couldn’t know.
So, we copied the blur of his swing
and stenciled “9” onto our shirts
believing heroes deserved
the praise of imitation.
And we played on the grit of lots
in the beating sun baking us wet
until the roar of thunder
would crack like a bat
and call our only game in town.
We’d wait it out on porches
spinning Chubby Checker’s records,
the vinyled gloss twisting
forty-five times a minute
in a Westinghouse hi-fi,
two years away from Dallas
and the shots that gave us
our own past to yearn for.
Summer was time between nuns
and their world of black and white
so we’d decide for ourselves
what was fair and what was foul.
Each morning brought orange juice
and the snap of corn flakes,
fuel for our game that passed
without attention to time,
the one we played when the sun
was gold enough to light the lives
of boys believing in summer
and the rich green of diamonds
where they could copy men
and wait for their chance.
published in The Twin Bill