the pitcher's pride
TRANSCRIPT
The Pitcher's PrideAuthor(s): Christopher HowellSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), p. 128Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20155476 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:48
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The Pitcher's Pride
Christopher Howell
At sixteen I wanted only
the hard laced scars
of dead horse
blurring from my fingers as the batter winced
and rode forward
into failure. All dreaming was a
pistol shot,
the ball exploding in the catcher's glove;
the ump's right arm
flying
up, recording the kill.
On my little tower
of earth I was close
enough to God:
I could see my sin
dissolving in thunderclaps
of His applause. Atta way
to fire, my son.
When the arm went
years later
in rainy McMinnville
I had prayed forgive
please thy humble servant
his power to mow 'em down
to bleached fear and the dull
lives calling slowly in
across the trimmed outfield
turned brown.
I paid for that
by wanting,
every day always
through the ice packs
and cortisone
and my own brown grass, wanting
forever
one more game.
128
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