Wiffle Ball with Harvey Lauber

We never broke windows, just the two of us
most of June to the dog days of August.
You were the Yankees Tuesday through Friday;
three wiffs with the bat the inning was over;
and beefs were settled rock-paper-scissors.

We also agreed I would feed your dog
that bit me when you went on vacation.
My father said don't do it again
but changed his mind when he saw you mow
lawns nearly brown by that time of summer
to pay for the doctor and penicillin.

We swam with black boys at Queens Borough Pool
who my uncle said peed in the water.
"So what if they do? We all do too,"
you said in the waning days of summer
before you moved to Hastings on Hudson
by which time I was dreaming anyhow
of girls in bikinis at Coney Island.

Ira Goldfarb said four years later
you died that June from Hopkins Lymphoma.
So in so far I was old enough now
for part-time work and four letter words
I took the bus by myself to the Bronx
to watch the Yanks beat the shit outta someone
but only saw there in the field of my dreams
two boys from Queens with a wiffle ball.