The Rookie
Rent from DeepDyve- The Rookie
America under the lightsat Harry Ball Field. A fog rolls inas the flag crinkles and drapes
around a metal pole.My son reaches into the skyto pull down a game-ender,
a bomb caught in his leather mitt.He gives the ball a flat squeezethen tosses it in from the outfield,
tugs his cap over a tussle of hairbefore joining the team—all high-fives and handshakes
as the Major boys line upat home plate. They are learninghow to be good sports,
their dugout cheers interrupted onlyby sunflower seed shells spatalong the first base line.
The coach prattles onabout the importance of stealingbases and productive outs [End Page 87]
while a teammate cracks a jokeabout my son’s ’fro, then says,But you’re not really black …
to which there’s laughter,to which he smiles but says nothing,which says something about
what goes unsaid, what startswith a harmless joke, routineas a can of corn.
But this is little league.This is where he learnshow to field a position,
how to play a bloop in the gap—that impossible space wherehe’ll always play defense. [End Page 88]
January Gill O’Neil is the author of Misery Islands (2014) and Underlife (2009), both published by CavanKerry Press. She is the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and an assistant professor of English at Salem State University. In April 2015 she was elected to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ (awp) board of trustees.
