baseball card

i put my boyhood between my bike spokes.
chewing gum. chewing tobacco.
chewing sunflower seeds in the dug out.
no one has a face in the outfield.
we find crowns in the hawk's nest. we eat
watermelon until our stomachs 
are fish bowls. running in the meadow 
of razor blades i became a blood ribbon dancer.
no one believed me when i said,
"once, i hit a home run." instead
they thought i was just saying
i wanted to run home. of course i did.
no one with a magenta body 
goes around thinking they are alive.
on the little card a man wears his muscles 
like trophies. how the body can be
a reaping place. sewing on a gender
until it is thick & ready to be useful.
i was alone in my own ballfield. on saturdays
the mennonite kids played & i watched.
horses in the yard. i could picture 
a fragment of myself posing 
with a bat slung over my shoulder. 
this is how my body
has always come to me. in pieces 
& snap shots. standing still.
in my mother's bedroom
there was once a full-length mirror.
i went there as a ritual; i was asking
to be whole. a tall glinting baseball card.
knocking knees. one missing tooth. 
i could fit my entire skeleton
into the palm of the glove. 
there were men some where 
& they were dreamlike.