TEAM FLAME, A Hermit Crab Essay in a Lineup Card

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

BATTING SECOND

Number 4, Short Stop, Asphalt

(Coaches note: the fastest runner)

On desert rides heat is built into the asphalt like a burning memory. In the desert’s hot waves, I recall Midwest summers when ball fields baked under August suns and my heart learned how quickly it could burn and how slowly it could mend.

Summer, heat, the Midwest, and the roads aflame.

It’s where I learned that blacktop exists, like the umpires’, to enforce the commandments:

endure
continue
drink water
keep moving west.

In thousands of controlled explosions, the Road King beneath me carries on its liturgy of squeeze, suck, bang, and blow. An engineer’s internal fire carrying external longing. It’s easy for engineers to mistake motion for transcendence. I have too.

Tomorrow, batting third, number 5, third base, Coal.

###

^{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.}