Doubleheader
by Jeffrey Alfier
Thanksgiving. I listen to the final voicemail
my father left me, third week of September,
autumn but a hint fanning the heat of late summer.
He says he’s fallen again, this time in the kitchen
while leaning on my mother’s chair —
the woman who’d left three years ago
in a morphine sleep. I enter the house
and he appears unhurt — a toppled but intact statue
who’d found himself at a right angle to gravity.
I am angry with him for no discernibly sane reason.
But I don’t let it show. He wears that stupid red sweater,
as winterworn as a fugitive’s.
Lifting him is lifting a sparrow, so frail now
he leaves no footfalls. I take him upstairs,
settle him in his chair and we watch
a ballgame together — a late doubleheader.
He will fall again before the final inning,
relievers in the bullpen, warming up,
and staring at the rain.
Jeffrey Alfier’s most recent book is Gone This Long: Southern Poems (2019). The Shadow Field, another poetry collection, is forthcoming from Louisiana Literature Press (2020). His publication credits include The Carolina Quarterly, Chiron Review, Copper Nickel, Midwest Quarterly, Permafrost, Southern Poetry Review, and Sport Literate. He is founder and co-editor of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review.