Friday, May 14, 2004
Take Me Out
I had a few other items I thought I might blog up for y’all but this one seems too timely to defer. I wrote it on my way to a playdate on Tuesday night.
On my same old clunky bus
the bag beside me not my bag
- that is, it’s not my usual,
it’s now my camera, I’m in boots
a baseball cap upon my head
a cap I’ve worn so many times
but this time it’s a baseball cap
because I’m going to the game:
a promise broken I to me
a dozen times in every summer
mocked by grinning phantoms staring
out at me from Kodak paper
stuck with magnets to the icebox
I’m at the last ball game I’ve been to,
me and Dave are loving life -
it’s Candlestick, five years ago
at least, so far behind me, hardly seems
to be the me I am today
the me who’s peered through knotholes built
into the new park’s right field wall,
at lunch, at work, so tantalyzingly adjacent
to my office - said to be
the nicest ballpark ever built.
This morning I had no idea
figured I’d be doing chores
looking forward to not cooking
that was going to be my evening
then I get that sneaky email
How’d you like to catch a ball game
got a box seat ticket sitting
here - is that your name on it?
I vascillated briefly, then got wise
and took the bait. I’m going now - to see
a baseball game again, I who once went once a month
at least, who tracked the game, but lately I
have paid no mind at all to sport
but that is not to say that I
have ever ceased to want to see
a game at this park
to sit under the lights
with the lawn gleaming greenly
the men carved of boulders
and running like wildcats
I will be watching them
with Jules the ex-imaginary,
reified, with offspring even,
this will be authentic
to the horse-hide marrow
this same old bus
drags me on to a goal
so old it is now new again -
a dog and a beer
and a friend and a game
it’s just one of those things
that is long overdue
but only for
a few more minutes.
