Drive-in movie theater, Merrillville, Indiana, 1989
Field of Dreams on a screen bigger than every building in Merrillville,
my brother and I eating chocolate sundaes from mini Dairy Queen Chicago White Sox helmets,
mosquito incense repellant sticks from father’s window,
transformed the minivan into an American cathedral like Comiskey Park
that would be gone soon like this drive-in theater,
watching a man, a ghost, hit baseballs a long distance,
baseballs disappearing into cornfields on a night as clear as this one,
baseballs disappearing into cornfields as mother scrubbed the helmets clean
with moist towelettes as brother falls asleep with chocolate syrup
on the sides of his open mouth and his tiny arms and legs reeking of bug spray
after mother took him outside behind the van to pee,
mother scrubbing mini baseball helmets once filled with ice cream
as baseballs and men disappeared into cornfields,
mother, father, Comiskey Park, and the drive-in now gone,
Dairy Queen stopped putting ice cream in baseball helmets long ago,
I sold one on Ebay last month for $40.
