Poetry by Richard Jordan
Aunt Cassie crouches behind a grungy dishrag
that marks home plate in this late August dusk,
smoke swirling from the Virginia Slim
dangling in her mouth. Aunt Cassie, who
doesn’t care much about Yaz’s triple crown
bid or Lonborg’s Cy Young odds. Still,
she pounds my grandfather’s ancient
catcher’s mitt, says, Let’s see that knuckler.
It’s the only pitch she’s heard of & only because
Uncle Bill, her brother, had a wicked one that
danced & dipped past local Mill League batters.
She tells me scouts were sniffing around until
Bill’s hand got mangled at the leatherboard factory.
She says I’ll work there over her dead body.
No, you’ll be a doctor. Even better, a veterinarian.
You’ll heal horses. Get a college education,
in any case. I rear back & launch a pitch
five feet above her head. Strike! she yells.
Sure, if the batter is the Jolly Green Giant, I say.
She almost falls over laughing & I can’t help it,
I laugh, too. Tell me about this Lonborg guy,
she says. Red Sox ace, I say. They’re going all
the way this year. She retrieves the ball, takes
a long drag on her cig, says, It’s good to go places,
then fires a scorcher straight into my glove.
Richard Jordan’s poems appear in Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, DMQ Review, Rattle, New York Quarterly, Connecticut River Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, “The Squannacook at Dawn”, won first place in the 2023 Poetry Box Chapbook Contest. His new chapbook, “Spotting the Rise”, is available through Rockwood Press. He serves as an Associate Editor for Thimble Literary Magazine.
Arcturus 