Wrinkle at the Ballpark

                        Where I cannot go
                        my mind spins there again.
                        This baseball above my pillow
                        corrals an infinite space
                        where time rolls back on itself
                        tripping me to catch up
                        to my brother scaling
                        that open gate across the lake
                        in northside Chicago.

                        I grow small when I climb to reach him
                        a carpenter ant scratching a mirror
                        covered in red brick and ivy.
                        Atop the jumbotron in the dugout
                        the crack of a mitt bats me to short.
                        My brother crawls the bases backward
                        and tags me safe on the mound.
                        All the fans kept apart in the stands
                        sigh their cheers with hushed thumbs down.

                        What I know prevails uncertain.
                        There's mustard on fastballs
                        at Wrigley Field.