She’s coating her mouth with black licorice
and her closed lips curve like two-lane blacktop
before laying centerline’s yellowish
stripe. Now she’s shading her eyelids (oh stop!)
with bat dung she found in the cathedral’s
bell tower last week when hiding from nuns
searching for her after vespers. Their calls
faded like virginity after one
semester in college. She’s painting her
puffed cheeks with pine tar she scraped off Brett’s bat
last month at the Hall of Fame. Monitors
were eyeing Lincecum on iPhones. (That’s
a home run, wouldn’t you say?) I’m swearing
now she’s leaving, and that’s all she’s wearing.
Roger Armbrust
September 5, 2010
