San Diego, 1974
  
 Is this enough? he asked his mother, wishing 
 the pits were baseballs, the bruised skin 
 of those on the counter his father’s skin.
 All along 10th Avenue the world was erupting
  
 & without perimeter. The mound of them
 shone moon-yellow on a lavender tray.
 Enough, Antonio, & now you play & leave
 the knife to me. A good boy, not thin enough
  
 for sin, he continued with his English Bible,
 reciting Matthew’s phrases in a jersey 
 that meant the Dodgers would be champions
 again. & there would be a feast, a feast
  
 replete with chocolate & por supuesto
 Dios Mio his father would not come. Bien
 he said to the wall; bien he said to Sutton,
 the lanky pitcher who never balked. 
  
 Seré jugador de beisbol, an all-star kissed
 by babies & women & men. Even so, the day
 was strange & demons came. Strange weather
 carried them from the ardent ocean.
  
 Outside his bedroom window the parade
 did rage. Jaunty floats & girls in masks, drunks
 ascending the steps of Luis’s Bodega 
 or asleep where 10th turns onto Crosby.
  
 He could hear the 3 p.m. train to Palo Alto,
 which would unload its cargo of fruit & go
 to Seattle, Butte, & Sioux City, but the day
 had just begun, his for now but not forever.