“Double Play,” by Eloise Klein Healy

By Precious Sanders @pdsanders99

Here’s a poem from the book Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.  I love the description of the ball as a star or a moon, and while I don’t recall having read much Gertrude Stein, from what I understand of her work, this piece would have suited her.

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If Gertrude Stein had played second base
she would have said “there’s only there there”
and putting thoughts in order.

The outfield is the place to dream,
where slow moons fall out of the sky
and rise clean over a green horizon.

The infield is tense as blank paper
and changeable as the cuneiform
of cleats along the path.

Stein would have loved the arc of arm
from short to second
and the spill of one white star
out of a hand.