The Dugout
A poem by Julia R. DeStefano
The Dugout
I’ve stopped waiting for your phone call.
The call that is doubtful to come
though he sees my eyes meet the phone.
Not discouraging me from secretly hoping
for some natural miracle
when I think we both know
that the man who vowed to never cause me pain
has hit a home run against his Rose in this tired game.
A walk-off —but it’s not the one we had planned.
Not when I was made out to be the Lady in White,
and Roy was so close to the truth.
Come with me, he says wordlessly.
And I swear I can hear his eyes talking:
I know you’ve been less here.
Until we find ourselves in the dugout
in some ironic echo of reality.
A ball being tossed around on the field
by an unskilled player who keeps letting it drop
and batter and bruise.
Where each bounce feels crippling to me
because it could be you out there,
knocking around the heart you promised to protect
before the streetlights come on.
He tells me about California
and embraces me like he’s squeezing every drop of pain
from the cells of my body
until these baseball images fall away
yet the smell of freshly-cut grass remains,
and I think I created his friendship from teardrops on pages.
He questions my invisible ties to this place
in a season of wither
because it takes two to water away a deliberate dry spell .
Feeling as if I’m hanging by the hose and the thread.
And the truth is,
I don’t really know what keeps me here
when all my gypsy soul wants to do is run,
like you,
and I want something better
that involves being found not abandoned.
But the difference is —
and it’s perhaps the saddest realization of all —
is that I love myself enough to get it.
© Julia R. DeStefano
