The Game of the Week
The Game of the Week
By Rupert Fike
Grainy Saturday afternoon miracle, my father
twisting the rabbit ears, our Zenith responding –
Comiskey or Tiger Stadium blinking into focus,
a vertical roll then yes, there was Colavito or Musial,
not quite gods yet far above the Atlanta Crackers.
Mid-century sunshine harsh, white-shirted fans,
a giant clock in the outfield, bleacher kids screaming
We want a hit! We want a hit! We want a hit!
But most of all it was Dizzy Dean (“Ole Diz,”)
addressing us as, Pardner – Pardner, he slud into third!
Stories of pitching with “Brother Paul” for the Cards,
that fateful line drive off Dizzy’s big toe.
All-Star Game, said my father. Never the same.
We want a hit! We want a hit! We want a hit!
Kids banging seats down. Where were the parents?.
My father’s scorecard abandoned in the fifth after
the Tigers batted around, Cash with a grand slam –
all this Ole Diz’s cue for The Wabash Cannonball,
She came down from Birmingham one cold December day. . .
my father yelling for my mother to come quick.
Ole Diz serenading millions in that flat nasal pitch –
Listen to her jingle, her rumble and her roar . . .
Hot dog wrappers blown across the infield, shadows
halfway to the mound, kids in the North so wild –
We want a hit! We want a hit! We want a hit!
Rupert Fike‘s second collection of poems, Hello the House, (Snake Nation Press, 2018) won the Haas Poetry Prize and was listed as one of the “Books All Georgians Should Read, 2018.” His work has appeared in The Southern Poetry Review, The Sun (forthcoming), Scalawag Magazine, The Georgetown Review, A&U America’s AIDS Magazine, The Flannery O’Connor Review, The Buddhist Poetry Review, Natural Bridge and others. He has a poem inscribed in a downtown Atlanta plaza, and his non-fiction, Voices from The Farm, examines his nine years on a spiritual commune.
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