It feels like opening day, but then again so did
last home game. That way they descend
in low-hanging swarms like locusts
dripping in royal blue pinstriped regalia. I drink in
their hairy arms and cargo shorts and
cheap sunglasses, holding the stewiness
inside of my jaw and trying to find it all poetic.
I creep up the street in my sedan, stopping short of
the fat pack of fans emptied sideways across
the mouth of Kenmore.
The police barrier isn’t up yet. The street is still
open for driving.
I try to get their attention in a sugarcane sweet voice,
but it’s drowned out by the air that’s thick with
stadium vibrations and yellowing t-shirts.
Just hit them
my neighbor says, smirking cockeyed at me
from his green-painted porch.
Riley Jane McLaughlin is a recent DePaul graduate who majored in English-Creative Writing and minored in Professional Writing and Women’s & Gender Studies. Riley also worked at the university’s Writing Center, and held the title of the Poetry Section Editor of Crook & Folly, DePaul’s literary magazine. In her free time, Riley enjoys yoga, shopping for crystals, and doing crafts.Â