This cannot be the blues. There’s no guitar,
just a rinky-dink piano, and someone crying,
and driveway gravel ploughed up by a car
that’s scratching off. There’s always someone dying.
Is today my turn? I’m standing tall at bat:
strike two, ball three, two out, the bases loaded
and a pitcher with no face beneath his hat.
He throws down like a Gatling gun’s exploded.
I don’t even see which ball home runs my head.
Lights flash and vaporise, go slowly out.
I try to walk to first but fall instead.
I see — I cannot hear — the umpire shout
as the pitcher drives up in a silent car,
its hood ornament a stringless steel guitar.