father, it was an honor to be there, in the dugout

with you, the glory of great black men swinging their lives

as bats, at tiny white balls

burning in at unbelievable speeds, riding up & in & out

a curve breaking down wicked, like a ball falling off a table

moving away, snaking down, screwing its stitched magic

into chitlin circuit air, its comma seams spinning

toward breakdown, dipping, like a hipster

bebopping a knee-dip stride, in the charlie parker forties

wrist curling, like a swan’s neck

behind a slick black back

cupping an invisible ball of dreams

& you there, father, regal, as an african, obeah man

sculpted out of wood, from a sacred tree, of no name, no place, origin

thick branches branching down, into cherokee & someplace else lost

way back in africa, the sap running dry

crossing from north carolina into georgia, inside grandmother mary’s

womb, where your mother had you in the violence of that red soil

ink blotter news, gone now, into blood graves

of american blues, sponging rococo

truth long gone as dinosaurs

the agent-oranged landscape of former names

absent of african polysyllables, dry husk, consonants there

now, in their place, names, flat, as polluted rivers

& that guitar string smile always snaking across

some virulent, american, redneck’s face

scorching, like atomic heat, mushrooming over nagasaki

& hiroshima, the fever blistered shadows of it all

inked, as etchings, into sizzled concrete

but you, there, father, through it all, a yardbird solo

riffing on bat & ball glory, breaking down the fabricated myths

of white major league legends, of who was better than who

beating them at their own crap

game, with killer bats, as bud powell swung his silence into beauty

of a josh gibson home run, skittering across piano keys of bleachers

shattering all manufactured legends up there in lights

struck out white knights, on the risky edge of amazement

awe, the miraculous truth sluicing through

steeped & disguised in the blues

confluencing, like the point at the cross

when a fastball hides itself up in a slider, curve

breaking down & away in a wicked, sly grin

curved & posed as an ass-scratching uncle tom, who

like old sachel paige delivering his famed hesitation pitch

before coming back with a hard, high, fast one, is slicker

sliding, & quicker than a professional hitman—

the deadliness of it all, the sudden strike

like that of the “brown bomber’s” crossing right

of sugar ray robinson’s, lightning, cobra bite

& you, there, father, through it all, catching rhythms

of chono pozo balls, drumming, like conga beats into your catcher’s mitt

hard & fast as “cool papa” bell jumping into bed

before the lights went out

of the old, negro baseball league, a promise, you were

father, a harbinger, of shock waves, soon come