Turning Up the Applause, and: Dog Days, and: Slo-Pitch

Turning Up the Applause

My father-in-law from Croatia
turned up the tape recorder
at the end of my wife's piano recital
when she was eight years old.

This weekend no one uses
the hairdryer and we just let
the air do what it does naturally.
The clock sleeps all day. The kids
quietly write their life stories in crayon.

Today I picked up my baseball bank
stuffed with pennies from the sixties
and shook it at some smart-ass birds
jazzing it up out on the telephone lines.

First weekend in June.
I was born 46 years ago.

The rise in volume is obvious as a father's love.
His English wasn't very good then.

My kids pressed some wild flowers
gathered in the park – my presents today.
The clock works while we sleep. When my hair
is wet, it doesn't look so gray.

I can't imagine her tiny on the bench
feet swaying beneath the keys. Or maybe
I can. What a gift! I close my eyes
and listen.

Dog Days

My neighbor sneezes his usual three times.
August – I don't know the date, a glum
zero hovering over these days.

My son asks about "dog days"
and I improvise something
about a dog panting in the heat.

The sun's burning out my memory
as effectively as little pills
I used to take when I was allergic to life.

Bless you, I say, for it's no use pretending
I can't hear. Bless you, bless you.
I enjoy addressing my neighbor

when he's not fighting with his wife.
When it is dark and only our screens
separate us. He slams the window shut.

But we don't have fur, my son says,
his breath hot against my neck.

Slo-Pitch

After leaping to catch a fly ball, I landed
on artificial turf, my head bouncing up.

At 46, it wasn't exactly a leap. At this age,
we only leap to our deaths. More like

a little bunny hop or the mad barnyard flail
of a chicken yearning to fly.

While I know I put my sunglasses back on,
I haven't found them since that evening.

I used to do something similar to my brain
a couple times a week back when –

hey, a white pigeon just goose-stepped
across my window. Who taught it that?

when I was/when was I?/whenIwaz.
I sat up on the stupid green fake grass

and shook my head to clear it.
I shook my head, and that means no.

So what if I squint a little more
than I did last week? I held onto the ball.

The pigeon takes a bow and flies away.
Oh yes, I hung on.