Braves' Game
I can’t remember the first time I let a boy feel
me up.
I want to believe it happened one night in the
park,
after the Fourth of July fireworks, that we
slipped away
from the crowd to make out in the dugout and
ended up
on the ball field under smoky moonlight, got all
literal, that first base happened on first base,
second on second, etc.
The men I like these days, men of a certain age,
love baseball.
Even in the steroidal, free-agent, money-ball now,
the thwack of the bat
is a thrill, the seventh inning stretch
suggestive. These old boys
of summer, soft in more places, still drink
their pale American
beer with gusto, and wink at me across the heads
of their grandkids
when our guy rounds third and heads home.
