Peanuts in the Shell

Familiar Salty friend
I lick your shell before I put you out like a cigarette underfoot

Take me back to the clamoring symbol-sound of thirty-thousand voices ring-ring-ringing through Jacob’s Field

Ball cracks against the wood of the bat as peanut shells go crunch under rubber-soled shoes

And the smell
Oh, the smell of the roasted all-beef hotdogs mingling with the Miller Lite taste on my tongue

Delightful
Blissfully indulgent memory
Of baseball in my hometown Cleveland