Ode to Jackie Robinson

Papa Joe's Big Red
is my kinda merlot.

Like koi rippling the muscular surface
of a Columbian drug cartel's afternoon pond
shadowed by various Roman statues
cupping their algae-covered breasts and pissing on the hyacinths.

This merlot,
sister or lover?

You decide.

Fate was never
my strong suit.

This fate who never ceases to amaze me.

This fate who once threw nasty curveballs
at God's heavily-padded shinbones blocking the plate
whenever Jackie Robinson
tried to steal home.

This fate sitting beside me right now,
tipping her third crystal glass
of Papa Joe's Big Red.

Alan Britt teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. His recent books are Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Essays recently in Clay Palm Review and Arson. Interviews and poetry (selected) recently featured in Steaua (Romania), Latino Stuff Review and Poet’s Market 2000. Other poems (selected) in Agni, The Bitter Oleander, Christian Science Monitor, Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, Confrontation, English Journal, Epoch, Fire (UK), Flint Hills Review, Fox Cry Review, Gradiva (Italy), Kansas Quarterly, The Kerf, Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Midwest Quarterly, New Letters, Pacific Review, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Puerto del Sol, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Revista Solar (Mexico), Rosebud, Second Aeon (Wales), Sou’wester, Square Lake, Writers’ Journal, plus the anthologies, Fathers: Poems About Fathers (St. Martin’s Press: 1998), Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology (Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., St. Mary’s College, MD), and La Adelfa Amarga: Seis Poetas Norteamericanos de Hoy (Ediciones El Santo Oficio, Peru, 2003). Recent readings: SUNY at Albany, NY, 2006; Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose, NY, 2006; Towson University, Towson, MD, 2006; PCA/ACA Conference, Boston, 2007.

Alan received his Masters Degree from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He performs poetry workshops for the Maryland State Arts Council and occasionally publishes the international literary journal, Black Moon, from Reisterstown, Maryland, where he lives with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, and two formerly feral cats.

Email: Alan Britt

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