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      December 12, 2019Yellow BeesAl Ortolani

      I bring the second-grade baseball
      team bubble gum, two bags of it.
      I open the sacks and dump the pieces
      into a single brown grocery sack.
      I leave it on the dugout bench
      and get out of the way, back to the
      lawn chair under the single elm.
      Moments later, when the first batter
      comes up to the plate, I notice
      his jaws, opening and closing
      on the sweet pulp, chomping at the
      plate before the whirring wheel
      of the pitching machine. Each boy
      is given five strikes before the coach
      sets the T on the plate. Eventually,
      when the bases are filled, Double
      Bubble gum wrappers blow across
      the infield with the dust and the
      small yellow bees. No one loses
      in second grade, not even Miller,
      who, as a dyslexic, can’t read,
      stammers through the week,
      but never needs the T. He can
      drive a long shot 50 feet
      over the shortstop’s head.

      from Hansel and Gretel Get the Word on the Street

      Al Ortolani

      “These poems represent connections to others, sometimes dark, sometimes light, often quirky. A fellow teacher, and mentor to the poet, once said that one of the most difficult measures of the career public school teacher is their ability to stay positive and elevated by interest, if not always in the subject matter, then in the hand raised outside of the T zone.”

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