Vol. 1, No. 2: Line Drives & Bloop Hits photo

An Ode to the Line-drives as They Curl to Drop Thirty Feet Beyond the Second Baseman Over & Over Again in My DreamsDarren C. Demaree

You can tell me
it’s the same
as moving a chair

from one corner
of my mind to another,
but I only know

how to peg a fastball
on the inside black
while I’m looking

for a pitch away.
My hands hold a flood
for the weak spot

in the riverbank.
It doesn’t matter
that I don’t hit it flush,

I round first
without a catch
in my knees.

The water is smooth
in my quick-twitch
dreams. 

I wait months for it
to roll me bare
into the crop

of my youth. I am
still the bloom when
I describe the bloom.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of sixteen poetry collections, most recently “a child walks in the dark”, (Harbor Editions, December 2021). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.