Dropping back with the ball ripe in my palm,
Grained and firm as the flesh of a living char,
I taper and coil myself down, raise arm to fake,
Running a little, seeing my targets emerge
Like quail above a wheat field’s golden lake.
In boyhood I saw my mother knit my warmth
With needles that were straight. I learned to feel
The passage of the bullet through the bore,
Its vein of flight between my heart and deer
Whose terror took the pulse of my hot will.
I learned how wild geese slice arcs from hanging pear
Of autumn noon; how the thought of love cleaves home,
And fists, with fury’s ray, can lay a weakness bare,
And instinct’s eye can mine fish under foam.
So as I run and weigh, measure and test,
The light kindles on helmets, the angry leap;
But secretly, coolly, as though stretching a hand to his chest,
I lay the ball in the arms of my planning end,
As true as metal, as deftly as surgeon’s wrist.