A Poem About Baseballs

Painting by Salvador Dali

A Poem about Baseballs


by Denis Johnson

for years the scenes bustled
through him as he dreamed he was
alive. then he felt real, and slammed


awake in the wet sheets screaming
too fast, everything moves
too fast, and the edges of things
are gone. four blocks away


a baseball was a dot against
the sky, and he thought, my
glove is too big, i will


drop the ball and it will be
a home run. the snow falls
too fast from the clouds,
and night is dropped and


snatched back like a huge
joke. is that the ball, or is
it just a bird, and the ball is
somewhere else, and i will
miss it? and the edges are gone, my


hands melt into the walls, my
hands do not end where the wall
begins. should i move
forward, or back, or will the ball


come right to me? i know i will
miss, because i always miss when it
takes so long. the wall has no
surface, no edge, the wall


fades into the air and the air is
my hand, and i am the wall. my
arm is the syringe and thus i


become the nurse, i am you,
nurse. if he gets
around the bases before the
ball comes down, is it a home


run, even if i catch it? if we could
slow down, and stop, we
would be one fused mass careening
at too great a speed through
the emptiness. if i catch


the ball, our side will
be up, and i will have to bat,
and i might strike out.


Denis Johnson, “A Poem about Baseballs” from The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly
Posted over on Poetry Foundation