-a summer morning-

1.
Saturday and the early church
bell tolls as the ballpark opens to sunlight.

It’s a measured knell, the muted
clapper inhaling between each strike to its metal lung.

It’s the toll for the dead
as we gather at the plate to choose-up
the sides who will play the game.

we're waiting on Petrillo who's standing
across the street as the slow procession rolls by, a true
stone's-throw from the red-brick facade of the church

whose bell calls the solemn bereaved to someone's end-of-the-line.

(there’s an awkward silence at the plate

brushing across the shuttered mouth of the game)

Petrillo's young temptation is to cross to the ballpark
jolting between the broken links of the murmuring transport
and he's fast enough to do it, but–– he waits it out.

behind us at the bakery's door, the ancient
Italian widow respectfully signs:

one touch for the father, one touch for the son.––
the holy ghost gets two.

2.
from the heavy four-footed print of his house, Petrillo
crosses behind the final car of second cousins, passing through
the gate at the towering backstop and we start to choose-up.

the death knell sounds in the name of one whose time has come
and the last kid standing in the dirt at the plate is taken by force.

Columbus Park, 1953-1954? 1952.