Prison Ball

by Peggy Kincaid

(From the back of her Opening Day Poets baseball card: “As a child, Peggy Kincaid was afraid of the ball, so she hung out in left field where she made up stories in her head and hummed. She still enjoys doing both. Though she may write about baseball from time to time, do not, under any circumstances, expect her to catch the ball. She will duck at the last minute, even if your face is in danger. Her poems and essays have been published or are forthcoming in Santa Clara Review, Calaveras Station, American River Review, and the Vacaville Reporter.”)

The hope that one of the umps

would tear off his mask and jump

the chain link kicked the excitement

of Little League baseball in Vacaville up a thousand.

The boys played next to the California Medical Facility,

aka prison, and trustees called the games.

The prisoners looked like regular guys, but

we kids knew those men had done bad things –

scary bad, some of them -- and they escaped

sometimes. When the noon sirens wailed

all over town and it wasn’t noon, mothers stopped

our games of street ball and kick the can, ran

us inside, locked the doors and yanked the curtains.

Sirhan Sirhan passed through our small town,

Juan Corona and Charles Manson came and stayed, so

at ball games we whispered, What if

one of the umps is one of THEM in a stolen uniform?

That thought goosed our spines good.

But Little League games are slow,

the bleachers hard and sticky,

and anxious waiting is hungry work.

So we shagged foul balls for free snow cones and prayed

for anything to happen.