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 Screen Dump 545

The reader peering out of the lines

of this poem filled with happenstance

steps back 60 years

to a wiffle ball game on a dead end street

in an old neighborhood . . .

A viewer pausing the stream

to raid the fridge . . . reminds us

that syntax creates tension . . .

backpedaling on a polished surface

as players shaking in their

Chuck Taylor All Stars

step up to the plate . . .

It is a time of ambiguity . . .

episodes tumble out helter skelter

for analysis by anchors

broadcast live in fuzzy black and white . . .

The wiffle ball game began

in the heat of noon

and continued into twilight . . .

Stoop sitters . . . with drinks . . . watched . . .

among them long-legged Trudi

who lived alone in a first-floor flat . . .

a regular . . . cigarette in one hand

Zippo in the other

in curlers, mascara, and white short-shorts

zippered in back

who later slid into the back seat

of a black DeVille

leaving the players with two men on

and a full count of 14-year-old wet dreams

sucking on plastic-tipped Tiparillos

pilfered from May's News . . .

a front for numbers

on the corner of Hibbard and James . . .

the backstory left sitting alone

beneath the dim dead end street light . . .

Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976)