Long before desire benched the boy
I was and took the field, we escaped
baking in our old brick oven

those summer nights, when Pops
ran a cord to the porch window,
so we could sit listening to katydid shrieks

compete with buzzing ballpark fans peppered
by vendors’ hawking cold beer and peanuts,
as fireflies signaled heater, deuce.

The Zenith glowed like the tip of Pop’s cigar
as the commentator fungoed lapidary stats between
plug-of-chew yarns, green as the outfield;

like the one about Casey Stengel —
booed at the plate in Brooklyn, Casey doffed
his cap, releasing a bird that flew

over the stunned silent crowd;
or the time he thought it too dark to play,
and signaled the bullpen with a lantern.

Those spells kept us rapt in the windup,
the pitch, the crack of horsehide on ash,
the majestic arc pictured in the words

of a waking dream, poetry flying
like Casey’s dove, timeless as a summer night,
on waves of amplitude

out to diamond stars,
modulated memories crackling
with static, fading in and out.

– Michael Waterson