A Bursting Beat: Excerpts from Aisle 228

Inning Ending Twin Killing
for Pat Hughes, the radio voice of the Chicago Cubs
after Elizabeth Bishop’s “Poem”

What a thing
it is to listen
to you describe
grounding into
a double play.
“Two looks…
turned into
each other,”
the equivalent
of Bishop’s
inherited Bristol
board. Down
7-0, this is
what “we get
for free—”
your voice
for a last
half inning.

Invasive

The mallard lay
in short center
field and no one,
not even the ump,
came close to her
grass. Russell ranged
to his right but behind
her, one more body
for the baseball
to dodge.

The 2016 Chicago Cubs led MLB in DRS (Defensive Runs Saved)
and some consider them the greatest defensive team of all time.

Snatched from its trajectory—
the catch hauled
and slung.

Hands work the blur.

A balance picked,
juggled, with one
flick—sunk.

Have you seen a net before?
The web of the glove
is what it was.

Extras

It was late when I walked by the sushi place. Through the picture window, I saw a man and his son, the owners perhaps, sitting beneath an anticipatory glow. They were watching the ballgame in the dark dining room. So unlike you and me, these foreign men resting after restaurant work, faithful through extra innings. I had flipped off the car radio, but I remember now we won. It was their reward for not going home, for waiting on the pitcher to throw.

Threshold
for the 2016 World Series

“The ball sailed a bit,”
Rizzo paused, “but it
went in my glove.”

When it landed
in his mitt, Hughes
cried, “It’s in time!”

His voice cracking
over first base,
dying beneath

Martinez’s cleat.
Silence—then
a bursting beat.