America’s Favorite Pastime

America’s Favorite Pastime

By Robin Michel

In the baseball stands, you find your eyes
field-distracted, fixed instead on the electronic 
tablets encased in neon plastic the color
of taffy and cotton candy held by two young boys
sitting between parents a few rows down.  
Cartoon tigers and rabbits, fish and panda bears
somersault and leap. Mohawked children
holding weapons rumble and jump.
The boys punch keys and swipe screens, silent
like their parents who stare straight ahead.
It’s the bottom of the second inning.
You think about a woman you once loved
now dead many years who told you stories
about watching baseball on weekends
with her father on a rabbit-eared TV.
He was gruff. A bricklayer who never
said I love you, he believed his responsibility
ended with turning over his paycheck.
It was the woman’s job to care for the children.
Once he took me to Candlestick Park to see the Giants.
Yes, he taught her the rules and how to love the game.  
In baseball season, she said, I then knew he loved me.

Robin Michel is the author of Things Will Be Better in Bountiful (Comstock Review) and Beneath a Strawberry Night Sky (Raven & Wren Press ). Her work appears in many journals, including Longridge Review, The MacGuffin, Prime Number, Rappahannock Review, Sand Hills, Wordpeace, and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco, home of the SF Giants, only a 20-30 minute trip to Oracle Park on the N-Judah.

Matt Lawrence is a Spanish/ESOL teacher in Baltimore, Maryland.  He is the father of two young men and has been deriving joy from making art for decades. You can check out some of his work on Instagram @Mattymarcador.

The Twin Bill is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. You can support The Twin Bill by donating here.