The Home Team Inspires a Winning Project Entry

The “Sense of Site” poetry project will distribute 80,000 postcards with literary glimpses of L.A. written by eight area writers. Winners of the competition will be announced in November, when the cards appear. But “Sense of Site” curator Terry Wolverton offered this preview, a winning piece by poet Anne Silver.

The Aroma of Dodger Blue

I

am just

a girl but I

can see me stepping

to the plate. C’mon, show

your best curve-ball. My weight

flows right to left as I step into the pitch,

smack it is so hard, it flaps its leather wings

and flies into the blue mitt of the sky, and I’m running

1st, 2nd, past 3rd, and heading home. I’m every fan, anthem,

inning, Mitsubishi scoreboard, gut bumping gut at the mound,

knee-high sock, knot-holed fence, wadded ticket in a kid’s

sweaty fist. That’s me, the green grass of night games, tobacco

spit, spilled beer, Dodger dog, peanut tosser, the sun bleach-

ing the bleachers at Chavez Ravine as my finger-tip arrives

before the ball in the catcher’s glove and I AM SAFE.