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Mustard on my Suit
by Jacob Erin-Cilberto

it was Carbondale's version of Ebbett's Field,
bottom of the ninth...
the last love affair played on the sacred turf of Flatbush stadium

Bleeding blue i sacrificed
but you walked,
left the city for someplace 700 miles away
next to an ocean;

traded billboard advertisements
for picket fences
bleachers for lawn chairs by the salty smelling sea

in Virginia, where they don't even have a baseball team
and don't like the sport anyway.

As they came to raze the stadium heart,
the wrecking ball,  painted independence red, white and blue
was aimed at what was left of me and you.

But i had already moved the franchise across town...
to a safer location, drafted new players to shore up the team
miles from the nearest
Dune
knowing all too soon

Old friends would fill the stadium seats
elated that their Brooklyn Bum
had not moved away,

but was sitting all alone in his
dugout, trying to manage.

 


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