Data?
What about the data
we lost when we didn’t press ‘Save”
and a surge from the thunder brought down the system.
Could we regroup
and reconstruct the narrative as it was
complete with those spontaneous digressions we found
sitting together in the stands of an abandoned ballpark
one weekday in the middle of winter
and later leaning against the chain-link fence by the dugout
looking at what was left of the almost eroded pitcher’s mound
the rubber awkwardly exposed like a gum’s last tooth
and later walking in the outfield with a history equally eroded
of teenagers backpedaling on the warning track
oblivious to the slant rhyme of subway cars
and later standing on the place where the plate used to be
and picking up a handful of dust.

Few places are as elegiac as ball fields in winter,
excepting perhaps old amusement parks by the sea in winter,
especially in a rain so light it does not fall as much as materialize.
Isn’t this how it is with inspiration,
a slight coating just enough to throw off you perception of the
   familiar
and soon the whole landscape seems formal.

Time is a terminally ill close relative of yours
and your impulse is to take a very good look at every feature
before you go
because tomorrow the bed may be empty.
And so, what is it? What are we meant to infer
from the almost imperceptibly slow decline from stable to
serious to critical?
What was the doctor saying when we were in the hall?
Is sadness something we were supposed to get used to?

The beauty of the ball and mitt was that there was no clock,
everything being equal the game could have gone on forever.