Caught Looking

Caught Looking

By Leland Seese

Green-eyed girl leans against the backstop,
smokes a cigarette. I feel her there the way
she sits behind me, second period, biology.
 
Mike’s on third, takes a lead, the winning run.
Hummon now. Little stick now. Bring me home.
This ump’s the one who whispers Ball under his breath
 
like spitting a tobacco leaf from off his tongue.
If it’s a strike, he’ll thunder loud enough to stop
the tennis players on the courts beyond left field.
 
Dad perches on the highest bleacher, all alone.
He showed up somewhere in the sixth, after work, 
necktie loosened, silent as a red-tailed hawk.
 
If I bring Mike in he won’t say anything, clap one time.
Up there, too, the old guy who sits through every game,
body broken, belly bloated, playing days long past,
 
emissary of the company of grandstand saints
shrouded in the incense of a well-chewed stogie.
The helmet’s headband bears the sweat of years
 
of other guys who stood in this same batter’s box,
musty smell from spending winter in a storage shed.
This bat, however, is my own. 
 
Solid ash, thirty ounces, thin from handle out to barrel. 
I roll it in my fingers, and again, try to find the grip,
hands wet, throat dry in this heat.

String bean pitcher winds and here it comes,
a gentle arc slowed down, breaking ball
not breaking, fat across the plate.
 
The girl drifts into mind, and dad.
I watch myself not swing. Steeeee-rike! he roars
and pulls his fists apart as if he’s tearing down
 
the curtain in the temple at the crucifixion. 
The girl is gone. My eyes meet dad’s. He drops his gaze
to weeds and peanut shells scattered underneath the bleachers.                                                 

Leland Seese spent his 10-year-old summer listening to Seattle Pilots games on the radio, and attending about 20 of their home games in Sick’s Stadium during their sole season in 1969. He still lives in Seattle, and follows the Mariners. His poems appear in RHINO, The Chestnut Review, The Stonecoast Review, Juked, Rust & Moth, and many other journals. Contact him at www.lelandseesepoetry.com.

Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can visit his shop on Red Bubble.

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