He perches in front
of the visitor’s dugout

Fiercely sharpening
his bile and steel

A storm cloud
over the infield

His mother inside
with a double-barreled shotgun

The sky turns Detroit gray
lightning strikes

His father’s guts
splattered on the grass

In the spume of sunflower seeds
and chewing tobacco juice

The Georgia Peach
with a nasty pit inside

***

Jonathan Hayes spent his childhood summers at the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts, where each season the “Splendid Splinter” would visit camp to fish, play tennis, and teach the campers his “Science of Hitting.” Now, Jonathan currently lives in Oakland, California with his wife and their cat.