In a Pickle

Poem inspired by Norman Rockwell's The Young Lady with the Shiner

Picture of my print of Norman Rockwell’s The Young Lady with the Shiner (1953). She’s trouble. I love her.

Benched after beating
boys at baseball
behind the backstop,
I’m in a pickle
with the principal,
swinging for the fences
of fast-pitched principles.

So here I sit
with an unpicked
switch, sporting
a smile of Christian charity,
interrogating with no shame
the game’s irregularities,
restricting me
from facing the mound
’cause I pee sitting down.

Too much testosterone
testing the dress
of my wherewithal,
pulling my pigtails
with perpetual gall,

I heckled from bleachers
to pastime gatekeepers,
pressured in equal measure
from a jury of my peers,
preachers pleading
for a chance at bat,
promising stapled lips
in exchange for a pinch hit.

Squaring my stance
in the batter’s box,
balking at constant
gimme-all-ya-got
shortstop shit-talk,

I stare down scarlet
seams spinning,
low & outside, swinging,
sending my shot to Centerfield,
racing up the first base side
of the degrading diamond,
chastising chalk lines
counterclockwise,
slamming second,
roundin’ third, headed for home
in a league of my own,
sliding face first,
dusted in determination’s dirt.

Like Ty Cobb fighting a fan,
I tackle the catcher
sneering behind a mask,
eating his cleats
with conviction’s teeth,
his leg’s line drive
delivering a shiner.

Nixing niceties in ninety-feet
increments, I complete
the three-sixty, the umpire
screaming SAFE.

Put that math on my epitaph,
but I’m not serving some scant
offering of sincere sorry
on the home plate
of apology, a sacrifice play
better than a pop-fly.

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The line a smile of Christian charity is borrowed from the poem “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. All other italicized words are lyrics to “Centerfield” by John Fogerty.

Thank you to the awesome folks at The Twin Bill, a baseball-themed literary journal, for first publishing this poem in their 2025 World Series issue.

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Note because I hate posting on Notes:

Aside from my growing disdain for writing platforms, I’ve been rather absent due to a chaotic schedule I thought was ending last week, but I found out it won’t be ending now until February-ish. So my presence will be sporadic, and I can hear my Substack email folder cussing at me. I’ll slowly be plugging away at it. I also know I’ve missed some responses like an asshole.

I do have some new poems (not previously published on Medium) I’m waiting to be published in journals before I can post them, and I’m waiting to hear back on others.

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