30/30: Golden Shovel #3

The batboy for the New York Yankees in the 1920s died alone and was buried without notice in 1935. A fan recently researched and got a headstone placed on his grave this year.

 

If only I had been a batboy

Being in the dugout and

Collecting balls and scraps as a talisman

against defeat, against what is

not to be seen, what must be honored.

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month. 

• Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.
• Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.
• Keep the end words in order.
• Describe the story that the headline is for.
• The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.