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December 17, 2022

December 17, 2022

Dear Davin,

I don’t know why I should tell you or anyone this,
because even poets have secret lives,

driving home from dim sum I hit 71 the length of the 210
crowded with cars, spaces between each car I passed.

To my tiny apartment, all I need—
though if someone offered me a mansion
with a twink staff,
I would accept those too—

Purple and green Michigan State Scoring Pencils
I took from bubble tests 1978 through ‘82.

Now that my material needs are met
I remain a spiritual wasteland

pretending to understand some of the Battle of Waterloo
after reading a 350-page history.

So much greatness by association.
In Anaheim Stadium by the Tiger dugout early for batting practice,

saw Al Kaline in the TV booth at the top level,
I waved and yelled as loud as I could, “Hey Al Kaline!”

He leaned out the window of his booth, looked down at me, smiled
and a big fist pump.

It was Lou Whitaker’s last season and I’d brought a baseball and pen.
When he came in from fielding practice I threw him the ball then asked,

”Hey Lou, would you sign this for me?”
He caught it, smiled, I tossed him the pen—

signed on the sweet spot, threw it back, ink still wet,
caught it on the dry side, handed me the pen.

Fifteen years later Trammel the Tigers manager,
I called into the dugout, “Alan, would you sign this for me?

Lou already signed it.”
”Throw it down.”

Caught it back ink side out. The number one double-play combination
in the history of baseball.

*

Leonora,

I did not chase the buck and a stable retirement,

perfect Davin—
not a narrative, thoughtful, logical ending.


—for Davin Malasarn, Leonora Smith & with deep regard for
Diane Wakoski’s poems “Dear Michael” and “Ode to
a Lebanese Crock of Olives”

—
Craig Cotter was born in 1960 in New York and has lived in California since 1986. His poems have appeared in hundreds of journals in the U.S., France, Italy, the Czech Republic, the U.K., Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, India, and Ireland. Books include The Aroma of Toast, Chopstix, Numbers, and After Lunch with Frank O’Hara.

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Have you read these poems:
What Was That Noise? by Stuart Watson
Train of Thought with Red-Eye and Wild Horses by Mark MacAllister

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