Knuckleball

Knuckleball

By Ed Meek

Before the game he files his nails flat.
His fingers, blunt talons, clutch the ball.
He throws like a child–all arm and wrist–
the wind-up half-assed, follow-through
an afterthought: it isn’t about speed. 
 
And when he lets it go
the ball floats and flutters without spin…
batters swing in vain wild attempts
to believe their otherwise reliable eye
as the ball sinks through the strike zone
toward the baffled catcher’s mitt.
 
Hitters shake their puzzled heads
on the way back to the bench.
It ain’t natural, they mutter
glancing at the pitcher
who, in the bottom of the eighth,
doesn’t even appear tired.
 
Yet he sweats because he too knows
the knuckleball is a mystery
that comes and goes.  And when it goes…
it hangs up above the plate–
a bulls-eye, a grapefruit, a beach ball…
and it’s gone—over the wall, out of the park.

Ed Meek is the author of Luck, short stories, and High Tide, poems.

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