The locals invite us for an evening game;
the town has 27 residents
and most worked today.

The Rampart team comes slowly,
dressed in waders and mitts in hand,
riding quads with beer coolers
in back.

They take the field first,
arrayed against a forested
backdrop and smoking,
all of them smoking
drinking running running
running as the softball skips
across the ground like so many
days flown by too quickly.

We mark ten runs and swap,
taking places with 11pm shadows
following us.

The never-setting sun
plays with our hair
as one hand might
play with the wind while driving,
that is, all fingers;
our own are spread between leather
webs and dusty stitches;
the ash on our hands
settles into our palm lines;
and we play deep into the night
on a gravel airstrip overlooking
the Alaskan interior.