-the third in a series of love stories devoted to early baseballs-

this is the third story.

it’s the one about the sewer

squatting at the gutter in front of my house; the house
across the street from the corner ending the right field line.

there, the sewer waits in perpetual attitude, inhaling
baseballs run afoul, its breath exhales of everything

once belonging to something from someplace else.

our neighborhood law states intently that

this sewer will never hold our baseballs within its putrid belly.

it wasn’t always, but sometimes I was called upon

to crawl inside its granite-heavy maw into

the stagnant drench of the sewer squatting at the foot of my house.

grab hold the backside of my withered belt, my young brothers.

hold tight to the riven denim at its cuffs and the looping

knots who bind the hightop sneaks.

hold fast to this slender body, loved-ones, for I’m going in.