Hot July afternoons,
’70s sun blazing down on our wild youth.
Methodist church yard,
or the neighbor’s field behind their house.
We ruled the backyard league,
assigning positions,
scribbling plays in the dirt,
imagining ourselves NFL kings.
Kids from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam joined us,
hands rough, English broken,
fast, fearless, slick,
learning the plays.
They were lightning on two legs.
We fumbled, we scraped knees,
we passed, we laughed.
Sometimes we wore helmets,
sometimes we knocked heads.
Crack of bats, tang of glove sweat.
Bloodied knees, sunburned scalps,
but we didn’t care.
Those were the days.
We traded football cards,
eyeing heroes on glossy cardboard,
as if we owned the world,
as if someday, somehow,
we’d be in the NFL,
wearing those full face masks,
looking like Roman gladiators.
Frank McManus knows the fastball’s coming.
Swings. Line drive.
Shatters the round silver trailer window.
We drop our bats, scatter, hearts pounding.
Mr. May storms up from his root cellar,
face red, yelling,
“You **** kids!”
I dive into the tall grass, left to center field,
heart thumping,
breathing like I just ran a marathon.
He doesn’t find me.
He doesn’t find any of us.
Me, my brother, the Malones,
the McManuses, the Codys.
We sit later behind the soda fountain
at the pharmacy on Ingersoll,
cool green rivers on ice,
tan, young, powerful,
laughing at our daring,
trading cards,
telling stories
about what we’d do
in the next game,
whose sister got their period.
We dreamed about summer afternoons,
praying it wouldn’t rain,
we owned it all,
if only for a moment.