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Contributor Series 10: Silken Rags, One Boy’s (and Man’s) Finery


12.26.11 Posted in Contributor Series 10, today's words by

Contributor Series 10: Silken Rags

One Boy’s (and Man’s) Finery
By Michael Ceraolo

Christmas 1969
Less than a month short of my twelfth birthday
I had asked for a new baseball glove
and there it was: a left-hander’s mitt
(Santa had subcontracted with Sears that year),
with Ted Williams’ name on it
(no matter that Williams was right-handed),
the first adult-sized anything I could call mine,
a piece of finery designed for use
And use it I would:
through
the next four years of city-sponsored baseball,
two tries at making the high school team,
countless pick-up baseball and softball games,
games of catch with my youngest brother
as he learned the basics of the game,
and
finally six years of rec league softball,
before it wore out,
at last unrepairable
Something that would have cost me
two months’ profits on my paper route
had I had to buy it myself,
so well made
that it lasted almost twenty years,
and
provided enjoyment in its use all of those years


Michael Ceraolo’s most recent poem to appear here was Free Speech XVI, published as part of Contributor Series 7: The Confessional Diary of Bone in October 2011.




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