The Double Play
In his sea-lit
Distance, the pitcher winding
Like a clock about to chime comes down with
The ball, hit
Sharply, under the artificial
Banks of arc lights, bounds like a vanishing
String
Over the green
To the shortstop magically
Scoop to his right whirling above his
Invisible
Shadows
In the dust redirects
Its flight to the running poised second
Baseman
Pirouettes
Leaping, above the slide, to throw
From mid-air, across the colored tightened
Interval
To the leaning-
Out first baseman ends the dance
Drawing it disappearing into his long brown
Glove
Stretches. What
Is too swift for deception
Is final, lost, among the loosened figures
Jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where this poem has happened.
~ Robert Wallace ~
