My father checked the stats in The Daily News, glasses
     askew
on his slender nose, listening to Red Barber's southern
     thrum,
rich with magnolias' scent and Mississippi raft lollin',
"They're tearin' up the pea patch, the bases are F.O.B., full of
     Brooklyns."

I never paid much mind but there was peace in the
     house
those loamy summer afternoons, when you could
     sizzle pizza
on pavement. Mama's noiseless laundry drooped
like willow branches from our first floor line, until one
     day
my father's handscrabble voice drowned out Red and
     Mel Allen
and even the cheers and groans for Bobby
     Thompson's
shot heard round the world. Was it then I sensed my father
blamed my mother for my brother's death? And so
     the Niagara
of words: the strikes, fouls and errors cluttered my life
as though blame could be written on a forehead.




A six-time Pushcart nominee, Liz Dolan has won an established artist fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Her second poetry manuscript, A Secret of Long Life, which is seeking a publisher, was nominated for the Robert McGovern Prize. Her first poetry collection, They Abide was published by March Street Press.