The Pitcher's PrideAuthor(s): Christopher HowellSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), p. 128Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20155476 .

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The Pitcher's Pride

Christopher Howell

At sixteen I wanted only

the hard laced scars

of dead horse

blurring from my fingers as the batter winced

and rode forward

into failure. All dreaming was a

pistol shot,

the ball exploding in the catcher's glove;

the ump's right arm

flying

up, recording the kill.

On my little tower

of earth I was close

enough to God:

I could see my sin

dissolving in thunderclaps

of His applause. Atta way

to fire, my son.

When the arm went

years later

in rainy McMinnville

I had prayed forgive

please thy humble servant

his power to mow 'em down

to bleached fear and the dull

lives calling slowly in

across the trimmed outfield

turned brown.

I paid for that

by wanting,

every day always

through the ice packs

and cortisone

and my own brown grass, wanting

forever

one more game.

128

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