Cancelled by Marjorie Maddox

• – Williamsport, PA: Little League World Series 2020

• The boy, the girl, the bat,
• abandoned

• not just like that, but left
• no less with less

• in his own country,
• her own county,

• the state of all now
• no state at all

• for the winning, the cry
• to “Play ball!” dying

• too fast to call foul,
• so far out of bounds

• of all we imagined remotely
• possible on these scrubbed streets

• meant not for pandemics,
• but parades, collectable pins,

• curbside toddlers catching candy,
• even nostalgic seniors

• tipping their ballcaps
• for favorite flags and destinations,

• while uniformed twelve-year-olds—
• momentarily glove-less—

• practice waving back, not quite
• believing they’ve won the right

• to arrive in this small town
• of heroes and dreams. Except

• this year. Now sidelined. No,
• cut altogether from the team.

• There’s nothing more
• to say. No instant replay.

• The deserted streets
• and stadiums will fill again,

• but not with their smiles.
• You can’t postpone thirteen.

Marjorie Maddox is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA, and has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); True, False, None of the Above (Illumination Book Award Medalist); Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award)—the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite); four children’s and YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Readiing Poems with Insider Exercises and A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry; I’m Feeling Blue, Too!—Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (co-editor); Presence (assistant editor); and 600+ stories, essays and poems in journals and anthologies. For more information, please see www.marjoriemaddox.com