Jan 2020
EXTRA INNINGS
I have outlived my mother
and my father. But I am getting
older, not younger, each inning.
Could I steal bases running
backwards? My poems scatter
the outfield. Some have been
home runs. Iambic pentameter
is playing shortstop. I sit now
in the dugout writing my novel.
The words I throw are strikes.
But I am playing in extra innings,
and I do not know when this
game will end.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
I have outlived my mother
and my father. But I am getting
older, not younger, each inning.
Could I steal bases running
backwards? My poems scatter
the outfield. Some have been
home runs. Iambic pentameter
is playing shortstop. I sit now
in the dugout writing my novel.
The words I throw are strikes.
But I am playing in extra innings,
and I do not know when this
game will end.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his first novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
