Red Dust
I miss not having Jim around.
He taught me how to throw a curve,
and how to hurl myself
into a hook slide.
Inevitably, he began to take half hour baths
and grease his hair. His eyes
dreamy as if he was seeing
a bicycle
on Christmas morning.
Finally he spilled, like his old self,
confessed
to his first kiss.
Any advice? I asked.
“Avoid the nose.”
. . . . . . . .What do you mean?
From then on,
we’d wave at each other.
I’d be coming back
from a baseball game,
Jim would shimmy out the door,
a carnation exploding from his lapel,
and a black bow on.
I’d be in jeans
wearing red dust
from hook slides
into second
base.
by Bob Bradshaw
Editor’s Note: The spare lines and simple narrative belie the complex sense of loss and nostalgia that closes this poem. Dust both sticks and blows away.
This happened to us all growing up. Captures it so well.
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