The BOOKPRESS | May 1999 |
The scores
my Cousin Martin got from the radio
And the crowd roars.
And Joltin' Joe relocates
far to home, the
silence pounds its run, long gone.
the time's total,
is a spun wobble suddenly clipped
—Carol Rubenstein
Carol Rubenstein
collected and translated songs, chants, and epics in
coded directly
into his bloodstream. Head dialed close, he knew
hits runs errors
strikes, everybody's averages until the very
verge of batting
moment, breath catch high and inside, and there’s
the pitch:
the stations of
his personal geometry, lit diamond echo blazing
out from the Yankee
Stadium just three local
bases loaded down
on the subway stop from where in the Bronx
Marty memorized
glory: And it’s a line drive into left field, how
How some brief
numbering
keeps, overhead
speedball streak still wheeling wow this once
only circuit, the
swung sum of it. That crack
of solid connect
O boy, goes around comes face toward us. Now's
alone, or never
batter's up bat was flung. From human side let go
be that forever
ball falling
back, back soundless
into arc: Where home is purely here and how
about that
Borneo and returned,
living now in Ithaca.
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