to choose who to cheer for
if my boys had been out
on the field.
But it's been 20 years -
am I supposed to
go wild for names
I've never heard of,
players brought in
from rival teams,
just because
I once loved
the boys who wore
those pinstripes?
Do I root for
empty jerseys
games gone by
the life I lived
in a faster city,
boys who wore
loose suits and tight ties?
Do I betray
this new life I've built
crying for old players
old colors old days?
Or is clapping when
pinstripes strike out
disloyal to the girl I once was,
the boys for whom I wore
my heart on my sleeve?
So hard to remember
boys are gone
girl's a woman
girl's a woman
players retired
stadium blown to bits
one gray day off season.
What do we do
now that we wear
civilian clothes,
without a next pitch
to lean in for
under the bright lights?
2 comments:
I think you could condense the first two stanzas by at least a couple of lines. The second-last stanza, too, could be tightened a bit (but keep the lines about the stadium being blown to bits).
i like the ending a lot-- the leaning in evokes all the enthusiasm of the past, the lost time. But what does 'civilian clothes' refer to? It's the players, not the speaker, who once wore uniforms.. or am I missing something here?
For me this starts right around "it's been 20 years" - I think you can drop that onramp.
I like the end.
I get a bit confused about the boys/girls thing. when you have trouble remembering "girl's a woman" - are you the girl who is a woman, and if the boys were your boys as in offspring, weren't you a woman then? Throws me...or is it just your boys as in the guys who used to play on the team back when you really followed the game...I don't mind the ambiguity but maybe you could throw another clue or two.
I like the title, it sets it up right away.
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