Summer he was 9
going on 10, suddenly
he had one:
chin tucked
into the leading shoulder,
the body at once lifted high
and crouched;
something in the thighs
was attached
to the ground
yet there was an upward
determination in the elbow—

a boy could be pulled
skyward and earthward at once,
could be, like the bat,
expectant, not quite still,
quivering with intent
to circle and strike a note;
his hands fused to the wood
and wrists braced as though
screwing tight or about to
unscrew the lid of a jar
(love in the wrists
was part of the stance)

and when the swing broke
and the ball whistled long
and everyone was moving, calling—the throw’s to second—
I wanted to study the stance again
in that suspended life
before a play happens,
before memory carried it away.

---

This poem appears in the September 2026 print edition.

© Illustration by Liz Hart / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

Summer he was 9
going on 10, suddenly
he had one:
chin tucked
into the leading shoulder,
the body at once lifted high
and crouched;
something in the thighs
was attached
to the ground
yet there was an upward
determination in the elbow—

a boy could be pulled
skyward and earthward at once,
could be, like the bat,
expectant, not quite still,
quivering with intent
to circle and strike a note;
his hands fused to the wood
and wrists braced as though
screwing tight or about to
unscrew the lid of a jar
(love in the wrists
was part of the stance)

and when the swing broke
and the ball whistled long
and everyone was moving, calling—the throw’s to second—
I wanted to study the stance again
in that suspended life
before a play happens,
before memory carried it away.

---

This poem appears in the September 2026 print edition.

© Illustration by Liz Hart / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

The author discusses her story “The Blight.”