Left-Handed Pitcher Working on a Scaffold - Barry Denny

[Larry Robinson]

Left-Handed Pitcher Working on a Scaffold
 
I am a failed state,
 
about to crack my backbone 
while still young
enough to fire smoke
95 MPH.
 
Herodotus abridged
and a bag of salted nuts
fall like lethal acorns
shaken free from my back pocket
 
Remember my torn mitt once autographed by Whitey Ford,
three no hitters in Catholic school. 
Was I the greatest? 
 
Sun contradicts breeze.
Soapy squeegee scrapes my skin.
Wind picks up.
Belt cracks; a universe unfastening                                             
symmetry as I unfold.
 
Somersaulting,
time slithers,
clichés ring,
historical antecedents drop like parachutes
behind enemy lines.
 
Before crashing, I spot autumn
gardens on rooftops,
helicopters like dragon flies overhead,
a peregrine falcon                                                                                 
circling.
 
If only I were a bird,
not ineffective like Icarus
flapping my melting wings
at cloud formations.
 
Absence is my future.
Dad smoldered 
when I read the Odyssey
in the locker room
after blowing a game in the ninth.
 
Given a better ERA
I’d never have taken a job
in the sky.
 
Dad, if you hadn’t craved a superstar,  
cash bonus to boot; if you hadn’t drilled me
daily with burning hot grounders
off varnished baseball bats,
I’d have studied physics or mythology 
instead of screwballs and sliders.
 
If my arms were shorter than ostrich gams, 
the flame on my fastball would never 
have held steady as a gelding’s canter —
granting me years to emerge whole
before turning 
old. 
 
	- Barry Denny 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20180718/f3a377e9/attachment.html>