nervous grace

Because I loved the bone-white hardness of the ball
that fit like a perfect toy in my hand,
the way my fingers ratcheted its tight red seams,
as if I could wind up joy and let it fly,
the running under the spinning ball
popped up in a child-blue sky,
its satisfying thunk into my glove,
the around-the-horn with other boys,
I wanted so badly to give it you

a seven-year-old lefty behind the house,
whose loose control burned my face red
and led me to zip the ball back into your tears.
But we kept on, a tyrant reigning behind a cardboard plate,
a subject red-handed. And you,
at your first and last game, standing
on a raised mound, the game spinning
around you like a merry-go-round gone mad,
the ball large and sour as a grapefruit in your hand,
missing the plate pitch after pitch,
I gripping the wire fence with white hands,
the white-haired coach shouting angry words
until he took you out, the bases loaded.

Now, at fourteen, out you go,
like a thoroughbred garbed in blue silks,
your baggy old-time hat tilted jauntily,
your lean legs loping across open fields.
I try to keep up but can’t, and marvel
at the nervous grace of your long body.
When I see you, the cemetery milestone turned,
running back to me, you smile and wave
your open hands, and I, yes, I
garbed in my drab clothes of guilt and age, yes,
I smile and open my hands to you.
[Orval Lund, ‘For John, Who Did Not Choose Baseball,’ from Casting Lines]