Motor City Swan Song

Motor City Swan Song

By Michael Gaspeny

Artwork by Scott Bolohan

June heatwave: at the game
you wore ski cap over ears,
Tigers jacket to the jaw,
winter gloves. You shook, eyes swam,                                                                         
nose ran, soaked tissues splitting.
Fever played your bones like bagpipes.
Three batters, and we were gone.

Michael Gaspeny has published three chapbooks—The Tyranny of Questions, a novella in verse, recently released by Unicorn Press, Re-Write Men and Vocation. Winner of the Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition and the O. Henry Festival Short Story Contest, he has received the North Carolina Governor’s Award for Volunteer Excellence in recognition of his hospice service. He saw his first major-league game at Briggs Stadium and has been devoted to the Detroit Tigers ever since.