LOVE AT DODGER STADIUM by G.P. Berns

There is nothing in all the world

Like hitting a baseball

Squarely

Too old to play

I sit in the stands

Dodger Stadium

And punch too hard a plastic beach ball floating by

Like a knuckleball

It flies, floats, drops, rises

Then out it goes over the field

Umpire halts the game

Points to me

Shortstop leaps and snags the stupid plastic thing

Thinking the ball is mine, ushers are headed my way

Fan yells, You Knucklehead 

Ushers hand me the ball to deflate and put away

Like in film noir, a chic woman in chic sunglasses

Sits by me

Lucky, this empty seat

Then again, noir films, maybe not so lucky

I guess her age, half my years plus seven years

Exactly the French formula for matching aged males

With femme fatales with bare shoulders

Voices and smarts like Stanwyck’s.

At the park I’m in the dark whether she’s had plastic surgery

Cannot tell her age

Ah, title of this my newest life episode: Plastic Can Be Deadly

She asks for her beach ball back.

I give it back and she holds it sweetly like it’s a baby

Out the corner of my eye I see tears in hers

Watch as she deftly deflates the large plastic ball

Packs it neatly in her Newport Beach bag

The game tied and headed for extra innings

When it’s over I’ll walk her to her Jaguar

Should this lovely woman ask me to follow her home

Or asks to follow me

I’ll say . . . no

Too shy, too sly, too savvy for pitch outs

(Hell, I’m an old catcher)

No percentage hitting a fastball squarely with her

Rather wait for your pitch

(Ted Williams was right)

Be slow like a knuckleball, float and fly, and dip

I may see her again

But if nothing else, for talk and tea . . . at three . . . pm:

Daylight can save you