get a load of lefty:

    pencil slim old athlete
    once well regarded love-barker
                        forever calling dates to his carnival
    no sense of love in his eyes with glint
        of his shark-grin heart showing through

but the chicks used to bite back anyway

now
alone   
    at balls’ sport bar
lefty shark-pants
    all alone

        with all these young things
        with the belly button rings
        trampstamped spines calling out
                "yes lefty" (or so he translates inside)

they don’t seem to hear
        his same old rusty call
        "hey
            baby
                comeoverhere…
lemmetellyaboutthetimeIpitchedfortheMets"

shit
no one cares about the Mets here
lefty

girls laugh at the skinny man
wearing the sharp antiques

la fleur’s been the bartender here
since lefty got home from new york
ages ago

he says to a newbie

            "lefty keeps trying
                you gotta give him credit
            but he puts the cart before the horse
                and still don’t got the change-up

never did"

lefty
    goes home alone
always

to a room over the little gym he started
        ten years ago
            with scraped together dollars
his trophies stabled in
        a dusty case

old men come here
punp and pull old muscles
and talk to lefty
        they remember
and care

but every saturday night
he sleeps alone
                drunk
                dreaming quizzically