I was never a baseball fan,

            Not really.

So how did it happen that the

            Closest, dearest friend

            Of my life

Was a prodigy who

            Made it to the Show

And lingered there for only

            A few years

Before bailing—missing the revivifying succor

            Of family and friends.

Of course, it was later—much later—

            That I would meet Pedro,

            When he wandered into my office

Announcing: he wished

            To be my Deputy Director.

Hmm. I ran a schools program

            For the City of New York,

The part that watched over housing

            And the people who sheltered there,

Directing a learning program for kids

            From kindergarten on up

One that taught youngsters about

            Rent and the law and the courts and economics and

            Cockroaches and vermin and lead poisoning

            And garbage disposal

            And community gardens and

            Keeping safe and clean and wise

            In households that loved them.

And who was this guy, again?

            A baseball player? Who’d pitched

            And hit and run for the Braves

            And the Giants?

Well, to be sure, he’d also been electrician and

            property manager

and I had my own peculiar trajectory:

            a college professor in

            Russian history, a poet, a novelist, a short story

            writer—What was I doing in this particular slot,

            running a program about housing?

Whatever the case,

these opposites met and, in a

            Few years of work together

            Forged a bond that lasted

            Until Pedro died.

            And long afterwards,

which is to say

            Until this very moment.