Softball
The English Department crawls through the grass,
the summer softball game stalled.
A professor has lost his wedding ring. The grad
student (an Americanist, Melville,
Hawthorne) lobbed the pitch toward him.
The professor swung, made
contact, stumbled onto first base. We’ll still win,
the girl on first taunted, a third
year Foucauldian. Gathering her hair in one hand,
she slid the band from her wrist
around the hair, secured it against her neck. The man
waited, bending his knees as if to test
that the ground could hold him. It was then that he saw
his ring finger, empty. By sunset,
the Department is still on its knees, staring into the lawn,
consoling, Don’t worry, we’ll find it.
You tell the story so very well. It's a wonderful poem, Hannah.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the time a wedding ring was lost at a rowing meet along the Charles River. Alas, it was never found.
Wow, that painting! Wow, this poem! Hannah you've outdone yourself again. This reminds me of when my wedding ring once slipped into a large catering pan of cole slaw at church and I had to spend an hour sifting through the slippery slaw lest an old lady bite down on my ring and break a tooth.
ReplyDeleteha ha "the department is still on its knees"d, I think I have really come to love how things end in your poems : ) xo
ReplyDeleteI love this. Whimsical, great story telling. I was just reading an interview with Philip Roth. His dream was to be a baseball player. Somehow this fits together in my head right now.
ReplyDeleteIt could be the candy corn overload though. ;-D
so visual--conjures up some really fresh images! i just love this. reference to "a third year Foucauldian" makes me smile.
ReplyDeletefrom Therese L. Broderick -- This understated poem is so suggestive and chilling (like this painting, or like "Christina's World" by Wyeth). What appears to be an innocent event may be a menacing drama. I think that the wedding ring and the girl's hair band are subtle images of power play, either professional or personal, either local or international (French/English). Perhaps the female grad students are on the rise, and the male professor is falling (in one or more ways)? The detachment in this piece reminds me of prose poems.
ReplyDelete