Why surprise at the white-

petaled branches nodding

me up the driveway,

scenting each breath

into the house

where my son greets me

in Little League blue

and my wife waits grinning

in the open-windowed kitchen

savored with pot roast and roses?

 

What crust of middle age dulled me

to how good supper feels

with curtains flapping

and all of us talking

as if we just woke up from winter?

Tonight I can’t sit for the TV news.

I need to be out on creaky bleachers

to cheer my boy as my wife

pours me decaf from a thermos.

This May I want nothing more

 

than the sun to stay longer

and light this game we love.

So let the others stare

if I giggle like a goon

when my wife tickles my belly.

Tonight I don’t care.

I just want my jeans against hers

as we watch our only child

tiny in the outfield

dash through twilight

 

as if no fence could stop him.

 

 

From Blue Mountain Time: New and Selected Poems about Baseball (2002).

Used with the author’s permission.