She grips the bat the proper way, the way Dad taught her. Right over left, the knuckles lined up like railroad tracks or piano keys, two of Dad’s many analogies thought up on the fly. Yet another:

Then she cupped my face in her hands just like my father and said, “You’re missing it!”

It’s good, I think, that we forget.

The year everyone was hitting home runs, Barry Bonds made lunch with his arms.

It was a slow curve—a big bender,
spinning against the trajectory
of the ball. It hung

The victim was the leadoff hitter for the Matsushima Baseball Ocean Temple Gods in the bottom of the first.

Letterman wore khakis and the camera angled up his crotch. I watched every night or set my VCR to record on the rare occasion I left my apartment.

His gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery brought a lump to my throat.

Because fifteen feet and a quarter-sized hunk of aluminum is nothing against the smell of oiled leather...

Just mid-February but a day like summer

I saw Candy the next time I went out. And the time after that. And the time after that.

I suppose all sports officials are gods of a sort...

After a loss, I’d seen him throw his gear in the garbage and denounce baseball altogether.

Crack! The sound of impact, ball on bat...

In the original cut of the movie, Ray says, “You wanna have a catch?” But test audiences were disappointed with the complete lack of father-son acknowledgement.

My friends lived for bottle rockets and Boy Scout merit badges; I, however, lived for called third strikes.

I couldn’t cut my hair (I’m no sheep) and I sure as hell couldn’t change my love of the Houston Astros.

I ended up in right field, ponytail eschew, cap falling to the bridge of my nose, shadowing my freckled cheeks.

I don’t think it made a sound.

Feels impossible
like trying to slice
a tomato with the
Wrong Knife
like trying to heal
with the Wrong Love

-

I am the evening flower
bloom at night
you are crows feet
crocodile eyes
a

“It’s time to choose,” the prison warden gruffly informed the man on death row. 

On my way to somewhere else, I happen to pass my ex-boyfriend Rob’s apartment, months since I’ve seen him, but he’s been showing up in my sleep recently, making me roll and grumble.

Picture this: It’s 2004. I’m living in Berkeley, California. I swear I am a cool girl. I’m dating a rapper who has had some success. He’s got massive dreadlocks that differentiate him from everyone.

Catch fire overtaking

I GOT NOTHING      I HAVE / NOTHING     I HAVE

CHLAMYDIA I GOT FROM

WHAT     YOU / THINK I HAVE

EVERYTHING AND THIS I DON’T

HAVE / NOTHING      I GOT I

GOT I

That’s what your parents say when they come in with their Santa suits. But it’s not Saturday. It’s Tuesday. It’s time to go to school.

If I could purchase a lifetime subscription to a living author’s work, I’d subscribe to John McNally. His fiction is engaging and funny, his books on craft are illuminating, and his recent memoir—The