Chattanooga Jubilee

Nick Bush

A mid-summer’s dream of memories
that are mine and only mine: some dusty
field in Northern Georgia flushed with manicured green.
Diamonds. An hour northwest, Chattanooga asphalt
buzzes with the scuttle of ’80s era automobiles.
The clanging screen door guarding the porch
where my mother’s namesake stretched her neck
skyward, describing her great aunt,
a slave on Atlanta plantations.
Somewhere in Buckhead, a boy with blonde bangs
and a life seemingly luckier than mine,
has thrown away his Fulton-County Stadium tickets,
and sits alone amidst air conditioning and Nintendo games,
his crowded closet overflowed
with new gloves, signed jerseys, and unfurled posters.
Meanwhile I’m planted, Indian-style,
in Chattanooga heat, watching with my grandparents
Tom Glavine’s cool delivery on a grainy tv.