mega h/t to aeryssports.com
With my deepest apologies to Ted Kooser.
"...if the painter shows that he observes more than he reflects, we will forget the limitation and take his work as we take nature, which if it does not think, is yet the cause of thought in us." ---The Evening Post, New York, May 31, 1865
1. SHARP SHOOTER
(A Minor Leaguer by the sink)
Some part of ball is the art
of balling---the phone
clutched in the left hand
like a magical bat,
his potential frozen in time.
This is a picture of
posing: the six-pack
on the tummy so toned
under the sparkly
thinbling'd necklace, the shirt
opened amidst the beige
curtain of the bathtub,
and this young playa among
the pump handsoaps,
his eyes as off-center as a bead
on a liner,
just a smidgen of fight
in his one unbroke hand,
like a star you might see
at the ballpark,
if he don't screw it up.
