I settled into my middle seat, next to a guy
holding a catchers mitt in his hands
and watching the wheels spin on other planes.
But then he placed the mitt on his lap and turned his phone
toward me, showing me photos of fish he caught
and his girlfriend back home in Michigan
still there while he flew to Anchorage to play summer ball
for three months
how glorious
to live in Alaska for three months one summer
playing long toss until long after dinner,
sky darkening only to a pale gray by 2 am
and lightening up again by 4.
But he might not stay, he said, because the major league baseball draft
was coming up and he might have to move again
somewhere further from Michigan even.
I asked him what he thought,
assumed he was worried sick
about flights and teammates and future
stuff, just all of it,
but he only said it would happen how it would happen
so it would.
And I wonder where he went from there.
Could he learn to hit a curveball as it spun in his eyes
then dropped to his knees
and could he learn to catch one
in the bottom of the 7th with the runner at third
after the batter cracked him on the skull
with a swing
by accident
Or did he just stay in Alaska
and find another fish to catch
one that dove under his hook
and stayed until at last the fish bit
and the ballplayer held it in his hands
and needed nothing else.
by 