The Faithful

You'd think they're Jesuits, the way
they cross themselves at every turn.
I wonder what it is they pray
about: to get a hit, to earn
a run, to knock one past the fence?
But I'm off base. They exercise
their faith—they know; those supplicants,
you don't trade prayers for RBI's.

That's more than me. Battered, I'd try
that hurried gesture as a call
to be delivered, slow and high,
a pitch to send out toward the wall.
I'd ask for that one RBI
and wonder at its rise and fall.

Copyright © 2007 Midge Goldberg All rights reserved
from Flume Ride
David Robert Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission