One Summer

One Summer

By Edwin Romond

We were twelve in ‘61
and counted Roger’s homers
as he chased the ghost of Babe
from a past we couldn’t know.
So, we copied the blur of his swing
 
and stenciled “9” onto our shirts
believing heroes deserved
the praise of imitation.
And we played on the grit of lots
in the beating sun baking us wet
 
until the roar of thunder
would crack like a bat
and call our only game in town.
We’d wait it out on porches
spinning Chubby Checker’s records,
 
the vinyled gloss twisting
forty-five times a minute
in a Westinghouse hi-fi,
two years away from Dallas
and the shots that gave us
 
our own past to yearn for.
Summer was time between nuns
and their world of black and white
so we’d decide for ourselves
what was fair and what was foul.
 
Each morning brought orange juice
and the snap of corn flakes,
fuel for our game that passed
without attention to time,
the one we played when the sun
 
was gold enough to light the lives
of boys believing in summer
and the rich green of diamonds
where they could copy men
and wait for their chance.

Edwin Romond is the author of five books of poetry. His most recent, Man at the Railing (NYQ Books) won the 2022 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania State Councils on the Arts. His poem, “Champion,” won the 2013 New Jersey Poetry Prize and Garrison Keillor has twice featured Romond’s poetry on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. A native of Woodbridge, NJ, he now lives with his wife, Mary, in Wind Gap, PA.

Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, or on Twitter @hxvphaestion and Tumblr.

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