Two-Sentence Poem

Those bright nights of my childhood

when the rest of the world was a darkened blur,

spent in spotlights on softball diamonds

where the umpires would shout indistinct words

that we all understood only by context

while we would wait for the team before us

to finish their game so we could take the field

to play yet another game much too late at night.

I imagine that, because my father

wasn’t good at communicating,

he played so much softball with me

in order to spend time with me,

and I kept playing, despite how much

I disliked the competition of the sport,

it because I thought it was important to him.

When I close my eyes I dream of a different childhood,

one that wouldn’t rob me of my interests

and would let me develop that talents I wish I could have,

instead of spending all my time

covered in the dry dust of a softball diamond

waiting for a ball to be hit at me.