LEANING INTO THE PAST, THE FUTURE AND THE PRESENT

LEANING INTO THE PAST, THE FUTURE
AND THE PRESENT

By Tim Suermondt

Artwork by Scott Bolohan

A block away my neighbor Jim
lives with his daughter, 12 year old Carla.
Carla says she wants to be a philosopher,
which is almost as exotic as saying
 
one wants to be a poet. But Carla loves
baseball too and now and then I join the two
for some catch and the shagging of grounders.
Carla handles groundballs superbly,
 
always has her glove far enough down—
Bill Buckner could have learned from her,
wounded as his legs were in the final season.
Once at the height of summer, the smell
 
of grass everywhere, Jim said “Carla’s
a natural” and I said “Carla’s a natural”
and Carla said “I’m a natural.” Sometimes,
the often disappointing world is perfect.

Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World will be forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2021. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.