Boston, 1986


It was a great year to be ten, falling
hard in love with baseball for the first time,
a winning sign of the romantic I'd become,
but then just a glowing kid, burning
with the post-season passion of Indian summer.

During the series, my father would mute the TV
and tune every radio in the house to the game,
the announcer's voice narrating my dreams
after I'd been sent to bed, that heavy, expectant
whir between pitches becoming a seven-game heartbeat.

I learned every one of their names and statistics
with a devotion I would never have again.
And the Mets, too, although I hated them
more than Khadafi.              
I wanted every one to be my husband.

On the chilly night of game seven,
my father let me take a radio to bed.
I cradled it like a doll and strained through the static
at every strike and hit and base taken,
the twilight unfolding play by anxious play.

The last crack of the bat was the sound
of a heart breaking on the night they lost,
hollow and sad, and the silence of the crowd
as heavy as the city,
a swallowing calm that echoed

in the sound of rain beginning to fall,
and in my father's mutter that it was all fixed,
and in my own disbelieving voice,
chanting the players' names over and over
to keep from crying as I fell asleep. 



Nina Riggs