Poem for My Husband on our 52nd Wedding Anniversary.

Yankee Game in 100 degrees

Sweat scalds eyeballs.

There are rows empty of seats, fans

sensibly dissuaded by the severe heat warning.

Aaron Judge is back from his back injury.

Damp palms clap for him.

Pigeons flap across the field.

Clouds canoodle in their bed of blue.

Fans chant Day-O.

Aaron Hicks makes a deep hit to right field.

Aaron Judge runs from second to third.

Kate Smith, a recently proven racist,

no longer bellows God Bless America.

Didi Gregorius slides head-first, stomach down,

arms outstretched, onto base like I, as a child,

rode the waves at Rockaway Beach.

O, for a sea breeze.

My husband takes a grinning bite

of his Nathan’s hot dog.

When we got married, his mother

threw away all his baseball cards.

I’m at this game because I love him.