K.G. Newman

Father pioneered analytics in Netscape forums
and this was debate time.
Mother drank. I Nintendo’d intently
with a game full of little hopes.
Mornings came. My eyes grew heavy
customizing the barrel speeds
of synthetic kings of swing.

There was a red dress
in the extra bedroom
spinning from the fan,
but who put it there?
Mother’s tumblers made water rings.
They were semi-opaque,
like the state of my brain just then.

The homers I hit sounded like guns.
“Data over beliefs,” he always repeated.
In my game full of little hopes,
conflict raged: Needles and lies
giving rise to an ugly kind of strikeout age,
with my humidor heart splintering at its stump.

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