Ed McCafferty - "Casey Park"

There are youngsters playing pick-up baseball
on a hardscrabble field
in the Heights section of Wilkes-Barre, PA.
We are not a real team,
we have no uniforms,
and our parents don’t watch us play.
To settle first pick
in choosing sides we spit
on a smooth flat stone
and toss it in the air-
one side wet
one side dry.

Today the entire Heights
is the stone come down
on its wet side.
The Asphalt on Empire Street
lucent lavender,
the infield at Casey Park
rainwet orange,
the woods beyond
deep blue and
heavy with rain.
The sand quarry
is a sienna pit,
and the coal-company houses
edging the woods
are slaked a corrugated gray.
A cool breeze blows
in from the highway,
and blows into my memory.

Twenty years later I return.
The woods, the sand pit, the company houses
are paved over into an industrial park.
But Casey Field thrives,
now edged with an outfield fence,
and now a Little League field
where real teams play.


Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine