-in the heat of the game-

A woman is driving a Dump-Truck

Down Bedford across from the park

Where we are heavily engaged
In a field-game of Peggyball.

Our team is challenged from a deep strike

By the team headed by Frankie Santos

Who lives on Haffords Street,

And Lionel Morais, our designated “Leaper” is readied

To take-up the challenge.

A Peggyball is formed of hard wood,

Painted bright red,

Is a little smaller than a golfball,

Is smooth all around,

With a flat-spot planed to prevent rolling

When placed on the lever over the fulcrum

To be tapped. The gracefully ascending  

Peggy is hit at the apex of flight with broomsticks
Sawed away from their working heads.

The opposing team is then challenged

To choose a Strider to reach the ball in as few

Leaps as possible.

The logistics in choosing the “number of strides”

Is complex.

This is not the place for a reading of the rules.

The woman driving the Dumpster is seen

Only by me as I walk to the chain-link fence

Separating traffic-fast Bedford Street

And Columbus Park in order to grab my stick.

We all had our own, mined secretly

From the kitchen closets.

After the necessary surgery,
Some sticks are wrapped at the base
In electrical tape for a better grip,

While some of us like the feel of the wood.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m curious about her

Because it’s 1953 and it seems out of place 

For a woman to be driving a Dump-Truck 
Through the city.

But before I can turn to tell my friends

Of this rare sighting,

Lionel is already striding long and fast

Through the dirt of the infield to the Peggy

Laying in the sunlight

Of the centerfield grass a good 300 feet away.

Take everything you know about beauty and effort;—

Take all you know of desire and passion,

And that’s the image of Lionel,

Striding long-legged to reach a Peggyball
In the heat of a game

Across a kid-saturated Columbus Park

In the face of a challenge

By the kids who belong

To a Park that was somewhere else.

The woman driving the Dumpster is no longer in sight

And the sound of the game is screaming at my back.

I have the stick of my own making in the grip of my hands,—

And Lionel Morais, with our neighborhood on his shoulders
Is leaping in a cloud of dust toward the Peggy.

          

                                                    Quequechan