Elysian Fields Quarterly - The Baseball Review

POETRY

Sonnet for Bob Gibson
By Hank Kalet

When he pitched
he had a look that said
he'd just as soon as stab you
as shake your hand;

towering, he would stare
as imposing a figure
as anything the Greeks could conjure;
heíd grip the ball fingers across stitching,

rear back and fire
and the batter would spin and twist,
a spastic ballerina
diving to the dirt and

Gibson would stare, glove hand out
as if this were the natural order of things.

—EFQ

HANK KALET, a lifelong Mets fan who still rues the day they traded Tom Seaver, is a newspaper editor in central New Jersey. His column, "Grassroots," appears regularly in The Progressive Populist, and his poetry has been published in numerous small-press publications.

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