Perfect Game

by Kathleen McClung

A quiet girl leaves on Saturdays before they wake,

delivers bottles of rum drizzle to the dump,

padlock combination leaking from her fingertips.

Alone on the mound, she pitches orange peels

to expectant gulls, as though it’s the World Series,

a hushed stadium crowded with wig heads,

belt buckles, legless stools, shards of baby food jars.

All marvel at her changeup, her breaking ball, how she

allows nothing, no hits or walks or errors in the field.

* * * * * 

"Perfect Game" was previously published in The Gathering 13: The Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Anthology 2015-2016 and Poetry Letter, California State Poetry Society, 2014

Kathleen McClung, author of Almost the Rowboat, teaches at Skyline College and The Writing Salon. She is associate director of the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. www.kathleenmcclung.com