Lefty winds, delivers—
Inside corner, on the hands,
Then a fastball, just under the chin.
At last comes the high hard one
Fouled straight back into the stands,
Followed by two in the dirt, in.
Then he throws the soft floater
Spinning and bending from
Somewhere near first,
Never quite reaching the plate.

I drop my bat to take my base
Just before the call: the ball
Was on the black.

Dark matter
Mainly comprises
Our universe,
Heavy stuff
Toward which
All good things
Gravitate.
Without which
Nothing would
Be nothing
And everything
smooth sailing
With no ripples,
No wrinkles.

The black is where a pitcher lives, a good one.
Throwing not quite strikes, but shaving the edge
Of the shadow of the border of black,
Expanding the batter’s sense
Of where the plate is, where the target is.

The wrinkles may be unseen, but they’re there,
And life without wrinkles or black is not life.
Your gray matter is charged by the invisible
And your dark matter matters all the more
So that my universe goes on expanding,
Letting light be light, creating dark delight.

So walking edges, feeling spaces between edges,
Dwelling in edges stretched out like fine gauze,
Riding the big bang from space to space,
You and I live
On the black.