Safe At Home
by Charles W. Brice
For Malik Hamilton
Last night, Andrew McCutchen, “Cutch” to us, slammed a tough one
into right field that hopped happily over Minnesota’s Eddie Rosario’s
left shoulder and dribbled onto the wall where Rosario, like the lame god
Hephaestus (what was he thinking?), took his sweet time retrieving the orb,
while Cutch, speedy as Apollo’s chariot, rounded third base and smashed
into the Twin’s Mount Olympus in the earthly form of Edwardo Nunez.
Their collision made the Hadron Collider blush and set the Richter Scale
thumping. The men who used to be in blue, but are now in gray,
called interference on Mount Olympus and sent our Pittsburgh Apollo
to the safety of home plate. Later, Cutch made poetry of the event,
“Definitely a foul there,” he said. “Fifteen yard penalty, roughing the passer,
automatic first down.” Andrew, our passer, was safe at home,
as I hope he is tonight and all the nights of his young life. I hope
he avoids the men in black who threw Eric Garner, Samuel Dubose,
Jonny Gammage, Walter Scott, John Crawford III, Dontre Hamilton,
and so many African American men out of the game forever,
out before they got to third base — passers, under
the lights of this long American night.
Charlie Brice is a recovering psychoanalyst. His first poetry collection, Flashcuts Out of Chaos, was published by WordTech Editions in June, 2016. His poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Avalon Literary Journal, The Paterson Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Spitball, VerseWrights, The Writing Disorder, and elsewhere. He is an International Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review’s Poetry 2015 International Poetry Competition, and his poem, “Wild Pitch,” was named one of the 75 best poems in Spitball magazine.