FATHER AND SON

1

I must be shrinking.

He seems

much taller than he was

a year ago.

And wiser.

He has his mother’s kindness

and the gift of spotting fakery

at sight.

He works at what

he loves where clocks have no

credentials.

His music lasts

like love, and those who play it

tell him that.

Though

family means most, completing

what needs doing ranks first

with him.

That’s why I love him

as the son-husband-father

who’s exceeded every hope

I dared to have.

He’s all

I wanted most but more

than I deserve.

Though two,

we’re one enough to know what’s

dearer than love of friend

for friend or brother for brother.

That’s ours now and always.

2

We pitched and caught with mitts

we never could dispose of‒

their weathered leather supple

after thirty years, their pockets

shaped by pitches gloved

as strikes, their webbings frayed,

their colors curing into faded

tans obscured with dirt

that scuffed their trademarks

to a smudge but still left readable

the names of Campanella and the great

DiMaggio before each man

was chosen for the Hall of Fame,

then claimed in turn by paraplegia

and infarction after Brooklyn opted

for Los Angeles while Stengel’s Yankees

kept their pinstripes in the Bronx,

and we survived to treasure

two outdated mitts now good

for nothing but nostalgia every time

we flex our fingers in them

to be sure the past still fits.

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