Home Run

by Michael Dylan Welch

First published in Vines #5, November 2021, page 8. Originally written on 6 July 2010 at Seattle’s Safeco Field during my son’s first baseball game (he was six years old).

Seattle Mariners 2

Kansas City Royals 3

third inning—

my six-year-old counts

the passing airplanes

the home run rises

a few rival cheers

crack of the bat

drowned out

by the beer vendor’s yell

the batter’s lunge

before changing his mind—

smell of shelled peanuts

shadows now

halfway up the bleachers

sixth inning—

my son asks when there’ll be

another home run

During the game, a foul ball landed in the left-field bleachers about 20 feet from us (a little beyond third base where we were sitting). That play made the evening news and we could see ourselves in the crowd. A thrill for my son to see himself on TV!