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.
The post Stance appeared first on The Atlantic.
