you can Throw a ball, but takes Skill to hit one
Cigarette drags are what this memory smells
like. Dancing with burger smoke to music
of youth nostalgia stealing bases, throwing
heaters; parents are fans filling bleachers.
One-hundred-degree days, a sunburnt
face and hands holding trophies gripped with
blisters that callus into off-speeds and sliding
two-seams that changeup into no-hitters.
Green gatorade was my first example
of replenish, I think those days are what
taught me how to finish. And practice made me
get used to repetition, failure, and commitment.
A twelve-year-old audition to learn to work
and earn every position. Cuts can hurt and
some never picked up a bat again. But others did learn
blood is only temporary, pain can’t last forever,
and scars are revenge.
3 thoughts on "you can Throw a ball, but takes Skill to hit one"
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I hear this in my head like a poem read at a poetry slam. Its rhythm is spoken, and that last line is fire!
Thanks !
Like the specificity the realism although I know nothing about the experience of youth sports this poem glimpses it for me. In the future brand names “Gatorade” could capture an era lost in 2020.
Awaiting delivery of your book the first one, “One Original…”
Cousin Phoebe Athey