-first the hamper-

in the morning

in the middle of Healy

in the middle of Bowl-a-Wicket,

a street game played with pinkies,

broomsticks, empty cans

of every description, but

about the same size,
10 per team, stacked in pyramids,

3 guys on a side
and with chalk-drawn circles of the same
diameter around the cans. but,
stay with me,

the open window at the first floor

of my house, facing the backyard street

whose line was empty of cloth, distracted

so as to make me lose my concentration

to the  immediate detail of the game

that had me standing at the home-end
of the cans, broomstick ready,

at the west-end fence of old-man

Rachlin’s Junkyard, facing,
about 60 feet away, the same array
of stacked cans on Healy toward Quarry

at Rachlin’s open gate to the east,
and 3 opposing players.

simply, the pitcher throws the pinky to the hitter.

the hitter hits the pinky.

now here’s the thing:

once the pinky is hit,
the hitter runs to the opposing

stack of cans as the other team
shags the pinky.
stay with me.

as they shag, the hitter-turned-runner
tags-up at the chalked-circle of the opposing
stack of cans,
he can't knock them down,

and runs back toward the stacked
cans of home.

a good hit means a run back
to the opposing stack,
tag-up in the chalked circle
and run to the cans of home again,

repeating as often as the runner has the chance.

each tag-up to each circle chalked around
the stack of cans, is one point.

It’s the job of the opposition
to retrieve the pinky

and as the hitter-turned-runner runs,
relay the pinky

to his mates, one of them throwing the pinky,

breaking the pyramid of cans stacked at home
before the runner
can tag the circle of chalk, thus
ending his run of points.

here’s the thing.

earlier in the morning
I was told to take my dungarees

off an put them in the hamper because
she said: “They’re filthy.”

they were.

but they were also broken-in, light in weight
and playable

because they’re runnable.

the new dungarees she had me wearing
were stiff,

unyielding and blue as a waxy Crayola.

now I’m up.
across the street,

the window’s open to the line.

half my eyes see emptiness.

half my brain is at the open window of the line.
half my desire is dying with me in the hamper.

a good hit has me running
to the cans at Rachlin's gate.
I'm fast. but not this morning.
this morning I'm running
like fatso Freddie Dagada
in dungarees more suitable to standing tents
than to running legs.
half-way back, the cans of home are hit
and spilled on the craggy-tar face of Healy Street
with force by the pinky, thrown fast
by the ear, and then

through the first floor open window,—
the screech of the pulley;
the push of the line at the hands of my mother,
the wave in the wet, the pinned soft material,—
stay with me,— and the longing
for tomorrow waiting on the ropes.


                                     quequechan