Kenny Roebuck's Knuckle-Curve

Slow and goofy as the kid himself, it rises out of crowd-noise and memory,
wobbles off the mound in a long jerky float
                                                                like the face of a drunk
coming out of a bar, luminous under streetlights,
rising, dipping, weaving,
             hovering over sidewalk and oily street,
closer, closer, until gradually you see it’s a face
you know, a face
you’ve mourned in the mirror —
                                                 stitched, battered, scarred —
the very mug of failure, but floating now in hard-won abandon,
lost to the world, recklessly at peace,
easy to swat as a saint,
                                  and you rock back, swing,
and it hops, weaves, jerks,
rockets at your crotch, and once again the world isn’t what you think,
and the memory, already wobbling, knuckles off
into voices, laughter, jeers,
                                        that sobering pop of the catcher’s mitt.

Copyright © 2004 David Bottoms All rights reserved
from Waltzing Through the Endtime
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission