A man from Minnesota says he grew up

throwing water into the January air

 

and watched it turn into snowfall. Yeah sure,

I say, and tell him I grew up a fish,

 

not one free in the wide wild, but already

caught on the line. I was the sweat

 

prickling your kneecaps, the night heat, a restless sleep,

I was that train derailment you once saw on TV.

 

He made fucking snow in his backyard!

Or at least he claimed to,

 

like how everyone claims Babe Ruth called his shot

though it was probably just a coincidence,

 

Old Babe rounding the bases thinking

Phew, I could have looked like a real asshole there.

 

He probably was a real asshole.

Weren’t they all in one way or another?

 

I ask my husband to tell me a random fact about a baseball player

(which is another way of saying I love you)

 

and he wonders if I already know about Chuck Knoblauch.

The name sounds familiar but let’s not forget

 

all the things I’m trying to remember,

like the grip of my mother’s hands

 

on a colander, her face hidden

in steam as the pasta drains.

 

Chuck’s one of those guys who could throw the ball

and then suddenly couldn’t—

 

the one who hit Keith Olberman’s mom in the stands.

I almost feel bad for him

 

(though not as bad as I do for Keith Olberman’s mom).

I say almost because I felt bad

 

but then rescinded the feeling when I read

he choked his wife. An asshole for sure.

 

He was a Yankee when he hit Mrs. Olberman

but before that, he played for the Minnesota Twins.

 

I can’t help but wonder if in all that time he spent

in the Twin Cities, did Chuck ever once make snow,

 

ever stand outside in that Midwestern chill,

a Texas boy born and bred,

 

and marvel at how one thing can so suddenly

become another,

 

like how a Gold Glove turns into

a cautionary tale?

 

Or maybe it’s not such a marvel after all,

inexplicable failure the flipside

 

of inexplicable success,

the monster lurking in the man.

 

What is snow if not water

waiting to be transformed?