Poets Do Pop
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Ann Cefola

is the author of Sugaring (Dancing Girl Press) and the translation Hence this cradle (Seismicity Editions).

A 2007 Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Fellow, she also received the 2001 Robert Penn Warren Award judged by John Ashbery.

Ann holds an MFA in Poetry Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.


—Back to Orsorum Contents/Issue Links—

Paul O’Neill in the Final Inning O’Neill Plays On Hours After Father Dies
—New York Times, October 28, 1999

O’Neill kicks dust at home plate.
Blood in his throat ticks like the scoreboard,
registering hits, runs, hits. Focus, he says.

When did the diamond’s soft chalk lines turn hard edge,
the pitcher’s throw too fast to navigate?
You never know which way

the ball’s going to cut, Torre says. When it cuts, it cracks.
Black wood rips open white
and soaring, slow-motion, three times, Rivera the reaper.

Bottom of the ninth, a collective inhale on that final catch.
Microphones wave like spears, all he hears is one,
not the way the cameras slice.

In center field, familiar uniforms leap and weave.
Walking into pinstripes, he takes his 6’5” frame and at last leans in
like a sequoia that can no longer face the wind.



 
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