Ten Thousand Games Ago

Ten Thousand Games Ago

By Callista Markotich

Across the Detroit River, Tigers.
Stealth. Speed. Night-time roars.
Then, presto! in Dad’s radio,
the front-room tabernacle
of sacred baseball sounds:
the thwack of the ball in a glove,
the whack of a bat on the base,
the crack of the bat on the ball,
fair or foul he knew by ear
ten thousand games ago.
 
Eyes closed, I bet he saw it too:
geometry of the diamond,
fielders splayed like a hand of cards,
the bullpen energy.
The cool batter taps his cleats,
the pitcher takes a sapient look for
shenanigans on the base
and throws a knuckleball, change-up, curve.
I bet he could taste the hot dogs, too,
ten thousand games ago.
 
Tigers weren’t alone in there –
Phillies, Pirates, Giants, Reds.
I’ve texted the four who walk this earth
who might still know:
siblings, cousins, two of each:
Guys, what team did Dad root for?
Red Sox, White Sox, Dodgers?
Not the Yankees, Tony said.
But we don’t know. We don’t. It was
ten thousand games ago.
 
Kids, ask your dad today.
Say: Who d’you like, Dad,
what’s your team?
Remember it, remember it
ten thousand games from now.
Us, we’re gonna have to say
for Dad it could have been 
the Angels
or the Saints,
‘cause, man, he was in heaven.

Callista Markotich has been published in The Antigonish Review, Arc, Freefall, Grain, The Nashwaak Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Riddle Fence, Room, in several American magazines such as Saddlebag Dispatches, and The Twin Bill and in British literary quarterlies and reviews. Her poems have received First Place Awards (Room, Arc Awesomeness), Second Place Awards (TNQ Nick Blatchford, CAA -TO Inaugural Writing Contest), and Honorable Mentions, have been featured in The League of Canadian Poets’ annual Poem in Your Pocket Campaign 2022 and have been nominated in 2022 for a Pushcart Prize and the National Magazine Awards. Callista is a retired Superintendent of Education, living gratefully on the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat in Kingston Ontario. She is a contributing editor for Arc Poetry Magazine.

Sam Williams is a cartoonist, comics publisher and baseball enthusiast based in Bournemouth, UK.

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