Published: Baseball Almanac (2000)

The painter with a beard
down to here
works mostly solo
since he's fussy
about his work,
won't just slop paint on.
Still he stuffs those whiskers
in a plastic A & P sack
in case a sneak wind slaps
his brush around.
Children tease,
shout he's eating oats
from an old feedbag.
He doesn't drink or smoke
but he'll go to a bar
that's got a bookie,
bet a bunch of baseball games
then sit in a corner munching
potato chips and reading
"Leaves of Grass"
which he found in the bleachers
at Fenway Park.
Some nights he sleeps in pastures
and tells anyone
who'll listen that he can hear
west coast games
when he puts an ear to the soil
or he swears he's thinking out a poem
about a Swedish girl
who had hair down to here
and loved him
when he was was a merchant marine.
But mostly he just dreams
of Walt and him,
painting tenements
and talking pennant race,
unbagged beards teasing the wind.
He doesn't give two shits
that the college boys
at the bar
claim old Walt was queer.

Fenway Bleachers by Thomas Michael McDade ©