part of many, apart from any
We were strolling the perimeter, pitching do-you-remembers. It’s not as if a dozen years since the sand-lot is long ago.
Or maybe it is when time slows against the throw of new-each-day. Ask any mother at the reunion whether there are enough hours.
It passes faster when we’re older, having passed through much before. Passes simpler too; more like arithmetic than algebra.
On the lot we played work-up, which I thought was baseball without teams. “Throw it to me, for the love of all baseball, throw it to me.”
As catcher I’d hear: please, next time say please. As if anybody did. It was everyone against the batters; the batters against their own.
Because other batters only cared that you brought them home. And that, my dear alumna, is how it has been since graduation.
( Diacope: a word or phrase repeated around another between. “Throw it to me, for the love of all baseball, throw it to me.” )
