From my aisle seat, I see him—The Mick—board
my flight from New York to Chicago. Shuffling his gait 
and girth into my adjacent seat, he orders a whiskey, neat.

            On takeoff I close my eyes —transport myself
            back to ’57—sitting lakeside, family picnicking,
            car windows down, radio so loud we feel 

the crack of Mantle’s bat—Mel Allen’s vaulting voice breaks,
shouting the call—Annnnd, it’s outta here! Another 
homerun for Number 7! Eyes open, I catch Mick’s signal—

            Another whisky. From the in-flight magazine, 
            I rip a strip of paper, hoping to ask him 
            for an autograph for my boys. I hesitate when 

he winces, sliding his leg in from the aisle. How many times
can a home run hitter clear the bases with a leg wound 
that won’t heal, hobbling from home plate, blood seeping

            from an abscessed hip, soaking his sock red?
            How battered must his ego have felt when strike-balls 
            began blowing past—alcohol punching out his career highs?

Fielding his blue-eyed, boys-of-summer, slugger smile, he turns to me.
Takes the slip of paper from my hand, stuffs it into his seat pocket,
pulls out a baseball card, fountain pen—grips it like the throat of a bat.

            With his right hand, he swings the nib down, scoops it up 
            and to the left, shaping his iconic half-moon M, slides the rest
            along the card’s baseline—his signature for my sons. 

Landing in Chicago, I wave him into the aisle, watch him lumber 
down the ramp, shoulders slumped, weaving through waves of travelers. 
I lose him when he swerves into a bar selling summer cocktails.

            At baggage claim, I phone my sons, tell them I’ve met The Mick—
            say nothing of the card I’m holding. Studying his signature
            with tired eyes, the half-moon morphs into a human

liver, tipped sideways. I will think of this image years later,
when family gathers at my mother’s deathbed, singing “Take Me 
Out to The Ball Game,” hoping our assembled voices

            will seep through her morphine stupor. She will die 
            from a unique liver disease that April. Mickey dies before her, 
            in August ’95—each in the wee hours, when stadium lights go dark.

I wonder now if he ever knew—on the night he was born,
a waxing gibbous moon shown over his Oklahoma 
home—lighting the dark sky—giving rise to his half-moon M?

Merna Dyer Skinner’s poems appear in numerous US and international journals, and six anthologies. Her chapbook, A Brief History of Two Aprons, was published by Finishing Line Press. Based in Portland, Oregon, Merna is editing an anthology of fishing poems by female poets, and can be found at https://mernadyerskinner.com.