TEAM FLAME, A Hermit Crab Essay in a baseball lineup card

A Hermit Crab Essay, Nine At-Bats in a Lineup Card

BATTING CLEANUP

Number 14, First Base, Antelope Ranch

(Coaches note: power and contact)

Motorcycling headlong into July’s hot wind, I was nearly there when I turned onto a dirt road and rumbled fifteen miles over boulders and ditches strewn with whitewashed bones: antelope skeletons, scattered ribs, skulls bleached by sun.

I was on the way to Antelope Ranch, Wyoming. Say it out loud now and hear how the word rolls off your tongue:

 | An-tel-lope |

 |  An-te-lope |

|  An-te-lope |

Alerted by the deep-throated rumble from my Harley, my host met me at the driveway. “We’ve never had anyone come up here on a bike.”

I parked my hot bike in his barn among the horses, sheep, and chickens. When the engine’s potato-potato-potato fell silent, the chickens clucked once and then Antelope Ranch settled.

Flowers bloomed in the yard. Dogs leapt. A baby crawled through grass. Antelope grazed the meadow while magpies gossiped in cottonwoods.

A home run. The bones were alive.

Tomorrow batting fifth, number 77, third base, Desert Dust.

# # #

^{Burning excerpts from Stories Emerge Like Bears, a Cornerstone Press forthcoming lyric memoir in 2028 exploring wilderness, memory, labor, rhythm, motorcycles, drumming, fire, and the sacred atmospheres and languages of place.}