Day 27: Pobject's Baseball Hat

My whiskey drinking days are over.

That’s what I told Johnnie, but she wouldn’t listen. Not when the heavy lidded Cherokee girl kept hittin on me, not when that scrawny white guy with the backwards baseball cap came swingin at us with a pool cue, shirt soaked with sweat in awkward places, nipples lookin like he was giving milk.

Not when we were out in the parking lot, when I said it again. Johnnie’d got slipped something I think, us out behind the lanes with her pukin her guts out and me pattin her back and saying I’m sorry over and over.

I told her, but she wouldn’t listen.

We got her cleaned up and we went back inside. She broke the pool cue over the white guy’s head, and I made out with the Cherokee girl. She had a big warm tongue and I tasted hand-rolled cigarettes.

Come closing time we headed home. Davey was still good to drive, and I let my head roll over onto Johnnie’s shoulder.

My whiskey drinking days are over, I said. There, there, she said.

Day 24: Dobject's Baseball Hat

[Apologies to Margaret Atwood]

Snowman wakes before dawn,

laying fully exposed in a tree

molting freely, swathed in stained bed sheets

like an alien Christ;

cratered pit of a city with fuming steroids

strewn with the skeletons and leftover smut,

nightly picked over by malevolent dogs,

in a quarry for Snowman’s mangos.

The last baseball hat ever worn

was an authentic replica Red Sox cap

clung to his sun brunt head

like a crimson crown: and the last joke was obscure.

He wished he was still asleep.

The godless MarvelMen trade him fish for mysticism

like naughty children, and ask the fleshy birdman for

secrets the Almighty Crake has whispered into his broken pocket watch.

Who doesn’t understand war

or faith, or toast, or free will,

or evil, or good, or obedience,

or pain, or meat, or death, or garbage: simply

don’t starve, don’t ask questions,

don’t leave the garden, don’t eat that,

don’t believe Snowman—and revel in the thankless ruins of an illegible history,

and Crake doesn’t care.

Day 24: Lobject’s Baseball Hat

Little pieces of paper live inside

this hat—shaped navy

embroidered with Butler

(my husband’s alma mater)

Little pieces of paper decide

the object of the day

for the top of the page

(it’s always a surprise)

Little pieces of paper provide

just a word for kick starting

word associations

(like baseball hat = writing)

Day 10: baseball hat

Each up at bat, I hold my breath

and wonder what life holds for him.  

Will kindness and luck always come 

your way?  I hope this happens more 

than less but know it won’t always be

the case.  Will the world break your 

spirit?  Or send you questioning

who you are? If so, I hope you still

end up back exactly

where you started.

Each time he takes to the field, I stop

to consider where he came from.

Your eyes are your fathers, but when

you stand up straight you remind me

of my dad.  When your throw your head

back and laugh, you bring back memories

of my sister, and when you grin, looking

sneaky, you look like Uncle Jamie.

Each time he makes it to first, I clap

and hope he makes it home.  I wonder what

your prom will be like.  Will you still love

to read?  Who will be your best friend?

Will it still be your dad?  No matter what,

I hope you still end up

exactly where you started.