Mary Poppins

watching friends play on the corners of diamonds
where girls experience muscle memories
with a new friend whose thigh you can
put your hand on like an old friend
drinking yourself down to meet the blanket

baseball softball what is a park?
this one is name brand, basketball paved
by none other than Steph Curry and Under Armour
more than just ball ball bat cage hoop glove square
bleachers chair mural maybe? barbecue
bacon wrapped of course, this is Berkeley,
after all.

a kid sees a seated adult like a personal invitation
like cause I'm not playing baseball
I must be Mary Poppins
crawling dumping purse contents
on the edges of a mint pitch
I'm experiencing a bad kind of dry
eye allergy itch but at least I've
discovered new italic season
of my life in which
I don't mind sitting on the sideline
reclining into a simple decision.

It feels like I've stepped off an elevator
onto the next floor of my biography
one dusty foot beyond the diamond and the other
crossing a shiny metal threshold
but of course it could be more like
the episode of the twilight zone
where she ends up in a disappearing attic

meanwhile I watch my friends run
names in the breeze
while a Chez Panisse baby tells me
how much she loved an old rich dog who died
even rich dogs die,
is all Mary Poppins could add
completely drunk with eyes
drier than a dead dog