Larry Rogers - "For Andy Who Signed with the San Francisco Giants in 1972 Written after Finding His First Bubble Gum Contract in the Smokehouse"

He wanted his ashes spread
over a pasture in Logan County
that decades earlier had been
a ball field on which the Dean brothers,
Dizzy and Daffy, had played
when they were boys.
When he was a boy
he would go there
and commune with
their carefree spirits
when he wanted to
get away from the worries
of this world.

Accommodating him
one bright, April morning
I did not hear the pop
of a fastball shooting
into the heart of the catcher's mitt,
or early 20th century
infield chatter,
only my own unsteady voice
giving the barefooted Diz
a glowing scouting report
on another local boy.


Spitball Magazine