we used to slide back there. it seemed like miles. we'd get a running start and hit the ice and our boots were like skates and we'd go all the way to the end, where the river cut the field in half and was still runnin even on the coldest days. sometimes we'd jump it and get our boots wet and knew we were in trouble. frostbite happens, especially out here, mom always said. so we'd carry the person with the icy boot back home like they were already dead and get into the house with yellow warm lights and mom would pick the burrs out of our mittens and wrap up the icy foot.
daddy knew we'd outgrown our backyard when i bust the seams in my baseball. he made us these bats out of the spare wood in the garage and they were the most beautiful things in the world, smooth and the perfect weight and size, just for us. well one day i hit a pitch so hard it landed in the drop off behind our apartment, with the old rusted fridge and broken glass and tangles of thorns. daddy said then, we have to find a new place to practice. so he took us out to the field and we made a baseball diamond with some of daddy's old shirts as bases. the ground was uneven and there were burrs everywhere, but we could hit the ball as hard as we wanted. i hit those pitches so hard i cracked my bat and my dad never looked so proud.
there was this time i was all wrapped up in something, 'cause my friend kissed the boy i loved, so i went out there to the field. it became this place that i could go and it felt like it was mine, even though it never really belonged to me. i found this old broken down barn under layers of yellow grass and got these pieces of coal and metal and kept them in my pocket. i went to the tree on the other side of the river, the tree that grew sideways. i tried to climb it but couldn't so instead i just sat under it and watched my house. it looked so different from the back, lined up with the other townhouses like big, quiet people just waiting for something to happen.
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