JACKIE
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Autograph this baseball, Jackie
whose roundness is like the grief of the centuries
that old amalgam of clay and sorrow
that cottony whiteness coursing in the blood.
Autograph this bat, Jackie Roosevelt Robinson
with the initials of your Mandinga people
imprint it with the mask worn at a rite in Nigeria
inscribe it with the flame of Zulu fires.
Lend me your uniform to put on as I play my game
so I can run the bases wearing your smile
I want to be the gazelle,
the gruff antelope,
the nocturnal jaguar,
the feathered serpent.
Let me step into your old Dodgers footwear
to trim the grass for Langston and Whitman
escape into the woods looking for the heart
you brought with you from Africa to Georgia.
Autograph that baseball, Jackie.
Hurl it into the endless stadium of the night
only sign your name among the others
if only one child finds it that will be enough for me.