I want to honor the girl I was
playing softball, pitcher, the heart
of the team but shy, the fulcrum
but broken
open by my brother,
open and busy
slamming
everything
shut.

I want to honor the girl I was wishing
myself invisible but there,
making the whole thing go,
week after week at practice and games,
mechanical arm moving
back and forth
back and forth release
and my feet
dusty and landing
soft on the soles
of my fifth-grade shoes.

I want to honor my v of attention on the girl at the plate,
like me only not
because she could talk and be 
easy in her body, all of them easy
though I know they could not 
all have been so easy
being girls like me,
some of them with brothers,
or fathers, uncles,
or neighbors of their own.

I want to honor the girl I was believing
I could be 
just fine, just fine if I
hit and ran and scooped up the ball but mostly
if I threw, lined up the toes of my shoes and threw,
stepping and swishing my arm toward home plate and releasing
and mostly the moment, the feeling
the sound of the ball
thumping solid and safe
in the dusty
the open
the glove.

CAT PIPER skulks about St. Paul’s West Side, keeping her eyes out for gardens, sidewalk poems, and other quirky, delightful things during what feels like a dark time. She has an MA in Human Development from St. Mary’s University and an MFA from Hamline University, both under her actual name. Her poems have appeared in Poetry East, Black Warrior Review, The New York Quarterly, Water~Stone, Sleet, and other journals. She provides quality assurance to programs for people who have disabilities and receive residential services. She lives with her husband and two young cats just up the bluff from the Mississippi.