Janniel Poem by Noah Smits

"Milwaukee's shortstop (jean segura) added to bereavement list—
deepest condolences offered up by myself and the entire mlb blogosphere—"
writes some guy who thinks he knows about grief because his hamster died and he listened to automatic for the people in his climate controlled madison apartment
while sun-baked old women gasp for breath and well-dressed gentlemen plead with their messiahs from ten thousand feet
and cruising
down the baja freeway come cartel jefes in caddies with bribes for the piggies at the ready and the playgrounds reek of tear gas and the filth piles up in the mines and the only thing that'll stop a honduran bullet is a short trip through honduran flesh (can't you hear it? i'm not woke i'm asleep but i can hear with my eyes shut iniquity's sighs and it's messing with my dreams)
——still, in the clear light of dawn that's just all the more reason
to discount this daughter/son as a tangential human being
fated to wither away into figures
a product and vessel of that riotous brown flame best left flailing below in its coop or its parks
only relevant through jean (who's in turn only relevant through his.293/.329/.423 line and 3 DRS last year which'll be hard to replicate this year what with his inconvenient lost time)
and if the kid was named mikaela or grayson we might parade their papi ‘round the ballpark and chop onions in the dugout on father's day and say at least he makes for a story even if his WAR drops a few points and the brewers cool off down the stretch again and st louis takes the division—
what can human life be but tangential, when the uniformed stars go swirling up above us bathed in the light of each other's magnificence
and on a cool night on the porch steps
when the banter gets too heavy
we can turn down the dial of our family radio
and stare out into the soft lights of the suburbs, secure and smiling in the throes of the elect.