Home Run.

Leckie, Ross

Home Run

   The clank of the aluminum bat releases
   a minute in a day that leaps into the arc
   of its mortality, falling into the glove's
   leathery pocket. Or maybe minutes desire
   to spread themselves out in doubles and triples
   into the gaps, bouncing past scrambling fielders
   and rolling to the fence. The pigeons pick
   at pieces of yesterday, their heads clicking up and
   down like the levers and springs of a watch.
   And in the backyard a couple of blocks away
   a father thinks he hears the echo of his heart
   as he constructs the child's dreaming life
   in a Jungle Gym. Insert screw and tighten
   with the key provided. The fielder plucks
   the ball and rifles it to the cut-off man.
   The runner holds at third. A few girlfriends
   perched on the benches of the stands slap
   their hands together and call encouragements.
   The universe is in the middle of its heart failure;
   it is letting itself out in one long exhalation.
   The doctor has a surgery scheduled at four,
   when he will probe the heart's chronology.