and I got dirty
knees-dirt-dirty 
fingers-in-dirt-dirty 
dandelion-root-up-dirty 
alyssum-verbena-snapdragon-dirty 
weed-whack-dirty
crabgrass-work-jerk-dirty
sock-forget-me-not-stuck-tight-dirty
dirty-good-feeling-dirty-dirty

I like it when it rains
and stops, and rains
again, and stops, and rains.

The entire month of April
has been intermittent,
as the weather pols say,

not like a windshield wiper
that has a built-in delay,
programmed for spring

but sensing it’s summer,
the pulse trying to wipe
away one season to get to another

but failing. Clouds are pretty much
perpetual, and the gloom
affects everyone, as if death

of a loved one and grief
rules with hunched shoulders
and capsized umbrellas--

or people like me hatless and hands free 
wanting wet shoes, smiling from 
moonwalking slick pavement.

I find my kid’s aluminum bats
tucked in the corner with tools
in the sagging shed
next to my wooden bat
with a screw in the handle
to tighten down a split
kept in case an intruder
broke into the house one night,
relegated to outside storage
by the fact I sleep so deeply
I don’t hear my wife come to bed.

I swing all three at once, 
happy, warming up,
thinking of the loft and arc
of a dirty scuffed ball
against a perfect blue sky
splitting what might have happened
from what actually did,
the wonder of baseball,
replaying what-ifs in your head,
a chance at luck and perfection,
perhaps the milled shapes
cupped in the chafed palms
and held tight by the worn fingers
meant to give a handle
to keep the thief of age away.