Fred Chappell
Fast Ball
The grass raw and electric
as the cat's whiskers.
3 and 2.
At second the runner loiters,
nervous as the corner junkie
edgy for a connection.
Hunched like a cat, the batter:
his prehensile bat
he curls and uncurls.
The pitcher hitches & hitches.
At last the hitcher pitches.
"It gets about the size," Ty Cobb said,
"of a watermelon seed.
It hisses as it passes."
The outfielders tumble like kittens
back to the benches.
Baseball's a game of light-speeds.
And inches.
Fred Chappell, Spring Garden: New and Selected Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 1995.