Poem: Zero to Seventeen in Sixty Seconds

Zero to Seventeen in Sixty Seconds 

I was born in forty-eight. Not much happened

until the fastball crashed against the side of my face,

effectively ending my baseball career at 11,

although I wouldn’t give it up for years.

There were basement dances where the Duprees

“You Belong to Me” and Lee Andrews “Teardrops”

taught us to how slow dance  with Ann Marie and Joanne,

our bodies doing what our minds couldn’t comprehend.

Next, not knowing life was a pinball machine,

I caromed into Mingus, his “Better Git It In Your Soul”

changed everything, made the idea of God seem plausible,

even after all those years with the nuns,  

the sacraments and the catechism. 

High school happened, but all I really remember

is the bus fight with the Germantown brothers,

the sad Friday in ’63 when time stopped,

the glory of breaking the tape

after four laps around the track,

passing the exhausted competition

like they had weights in their shoes;

then steaming a Winston with my buddies

while we waited on the corner for the bus,

our heads pulled down like tough guys,

although back then we were just

skinny Irish kids from the neighborhood,

didn’t know shit from shinola

but thought we were cool anyway. 

Weekends it was cruising

in the two-tone ’56 Buick Special

up and down the avenue looking for Nadine and Sheila,

sucking gas through the four barrel

so fast you could watch the needle drop

right before your poor ass eyes,

everybody pitching in fifty cents

for a couple of cold quarts to pass around

before retreating, alone again on Saturday night,

to Sam and Ben’s deli

near the circle on Castor Avenue

for the runner-up prize, corned beef

piled high on seeded Jewish rye,

a side of slaw and a Tastykake,

the “gives-a-fuck” bravado

of comrades in defeat. 

No satisfaction, man, no satisfaction,

but, you bet your ass,

we’re all in it together,

you bet your fuckin’ ass we are.