Home Runaround
Pull up your white sox, Dad.
You must be in seventh heaven, chewing the fat
with Nellie, Minnie, and the rest of dead players who riveted you.
Your only soft spot for your dad was reserved for Sunday afternoon seats
reserved along third, to watch Ted Lyons hurl—
the only times you ever shouted around him.
Escaped from that drain, you forever burst with words.
Near your South Shore home and his Pullman shop,
you and Bill Senior even sneaked in a weekday fun few innings.
But really: chilidogs before racing back to dinner with mama Grace?
Go on, ask her if she knew your tricks. For that matter, ask Jackson
if he really threw his shoes and that fix. I’m sure Landis would pardon
Joe’s shouting, after the pardon.
I haven’t even made a game since your last
before sliding headlong into dementia—lightning-like, like Little Louie stealing second.
How could I take your spot in the lineup?
I run round the bases in an endless loop. Not even a single-A rookie
gets lost in the infield, but that’s the way this circle smells—
a stale-sweat double-header stench.
The catcher’s blocking the plate, the fly rule knocks me out,
or some other silly billy-goat-curse sends me to the bench.
My score is always nothing-nothing, but not, thank God, zero-zero.
Do they hit fungoes up there to keep you sharp?
Does a snap throw from deep short still nip an angel flying to first?
I’ll forever treasure the ’05 series, but I don’t remember seeing Leo,
or I looked right through that ordinary fan.
Another grand slam is too big a gesture, unless the Pope calls that shot.
He hopes only that you make contact and drive me in,
for a prayer at the postseason. A sacrifice fly is good as a triple,
if struck with holy reason.
***
A Temporary Ending
Did it feel like the full four years
or the much shorter forty-eight months?
Did your cacophony of emotions converge at once
in crescendo as that last playful week neared?
I imagine they did as I imagine mine did
and envy the immediacy you need not conjure.
If the sum of the splintered parts was not quite as pure
as a frosh dream may have suggested,
still the Ryans and Reagan and other soft souls
such as Sitter stand strong in one camp.
The romance of Norwich and Dublin damp
and the family at Florida’s bowl
and Finny’s and Fiddler’s and Highlander flings
and Riley’s original rattling bones
and lake walks to skip philosophical stones
may swell your later heart: sing!
It’s wrenching to end a golden era
that went inchingly blue boy to merry man.
Think as only Holmes can
of ways to sustain the ephemera:
if all impossible outcomes are tossed,
the remaining solution, no matter how doubtful,
shall be spot on, ineluctable.
Thus of course your first boss
will just by being remind,
a humble cruller to dunk will recall,
a crisp Saturday throwing an oblong ball—
all will like lock tumblers click, aligned.
Nothing is unalloyed,
but let positives fairly spin
when the dome and its gravity pull you in,
and let memory run rampant to joy.
***
William T. Carey lives with his wife in the Chicago area. Luckily, their adult son lives nearby. Too long ago, Carey attended the University of Notre Dame and Washington University Law School, and he practiced law for some years before joining his family’s real estate investment business. In later years he returned to the world of language, his first love. His interests include piano and guitar, tennis, travel, reading, hiking, and tai chi. His poems have appeared in various journals. Kelsay Books published his poetry collection, Family Rattling, in 2024.
