These are the best of days.
The air is warm, but not too warm.
The sun, like a comforter on your skin;
the shade, a pillow that doesn’t need
turning over. I once knew a girl who always
slept with nothing on. The sheets split
the world into the haves
and the have-nots – at least from
my misguided drunkard’s point of view.
I don’t even remember her name.
I do know she never used my name.
Like the way I always heard it from the stands
while hunched in a nervous batter’s stance.
Those were the days. But these
are the best of days. I can still move
my arms and legs and wash myself
without help. I can decide what to eat
and whether the coffee drips languorously
or chortles like a field of jackdaws.
I’ve just come from a certified Best
Friends environment, where I looked in
on my mother. She said my name
once or twice. They know her
like she knew me as a helpless newborn.
Except I was smaller, and bathed
in an ocean of light. I spooned soup
and fruit yoghurt into her mouth,
and she relished it like a child.
While she slept I held her hand and
stared at her closed eyelids, thinking
of time and dried apricots. And the things
she taught me. How to get J.S. Bach
and Billie Holiday. And shuffle with
the likes of Ingrid Bergman and Norman
Rockwell. Tame sabre-tooth tigers
from Paleolithic cave walls. With honest
toil and love. But these are the best of days.
Science and mysticism are within our grasp,
just a book or a jazz beat away.
The Perseid meteor-showers enlighten
our nights – so long as you watch
from a dark place. They look like shooting
stars but they’re not. When it’s overcast,
I stay in bed and dream of the old days.
Although these are the best of days.
Shohei Ohtani pitching and hitting long
balls for the Angels. One hundred years
after The Bambino. She took me
to all my Little League games and
taught me to dream. She cheered me on,
with her foreign accent, which sometimes
made me look away. I’d often strike out
and bobble the ball. But still
she cheered me on. In the future
they will say: I wish I’d been there
to see him. In the future, I might forget
my own mind. So I watch the games
in real time and fix my eyes on the storied
devastation of his swing, the sweet
nastiness of his sliders. The first summer
we joined the Great Dream,
I wanted to play. I’d throw a tennis ball
against the stoop and mutter
to myself. So she took me to the park
and signed me up. Cheered me on
with her foreign accent. His fifth season
with the Angels, Shohei still uses
an interpreter. Perfection knows no limits.
Not to knock him. He’s the man.
Everyone cheers him on. But she
was no perfectionist. She didn’t care
what others thought. She would want me
to buy a ticket on the first base line and
sit there with a hotdog and a scorecard.
She would cheer for the Angels.
That would be her team. I turned on
the game and we sat and watched in silence.
The Angels are a long shot. They limp
and fumble along. But they have Shohei
Ohtani. The way she cheered, back then,
it was like she was saying,
Yes, you are an outsider, but what’s
stopping you from giving them something
good to feel? Little star, don’t ever
lose that fire.
Shohei throws a one-hitter, then promptly
smashes two homers. When I pump
my fist, the yoghurt spills and
the spoon clatters on the floor.
That was one of the times she said
my name. She also smiled. She still
says my name with that accent of hers.
Yes, these are the best of days.
