Poetry by Misty Wycoff
“Game Time” was the second-place winner in fiction in the 2024 Golden Quill Writing Contest.
I often wake with the first line of a poem
floating around me, calling,
asking if I will come out to play.
Just like the neighbor kid
who sat on the stoop waiting,
no words beyond the nod or the “Hey,”
spoken with our eyes sweeping ahead.
A long day’s possibilities beckon
to the game that we would make,
after walking to the empty field,
trusting something unspoken,
watching the stray cat climb
the right field fence,
relying on the glove
that I haven’t taken off all morning,
or that beat up ball
lying behind the backstop.
Pace quickens as we enter the grounds,
checking the outfield for intruders
kicking the sweet soft dust underfoot
playing the silence as it bounced off
the much larger imagined roar
as we step on the ball field.
With minds drenched in knowing
how sweet the ball would feel
smacking into the back of the glove,
or hearing the swinging bat clack,
or feeling the loping run and tagging up,
getting ourselves home.
Like that, as I left the bed,
I moved towards the blank page
carrying something in my pocket
looking for a game.
Born to a world of high grass, crawdad creeks, and sharecropper orchard houses, Misty Wycoff’s early life was often spent in solitude, perched in the low branches of an old cypress tree, communing with the ranch dogs and wild animals, or barefoot, clamming the mudflats around Bodega Bay California. After nearly twenty years in Los Osos, she finds a deep resonance here to the land of her upbringing. Her first book High Rain came out in 2019, and she is currently editing her eighth book, Dwelling, which should be in local bookstores by early 2025. Contact through website is: bmistywycoff.com.