Part 1: Dialogue with a Golf Ball

Part 1: Dialogue with a Golf Ball

---------

"You are old, Father [Chuckles],"
     the young man said;
"And your hair [what's left of it] 
     has become very white;
And yet you incessantly
     stand on your head ---
Do you think, at your age, 
     it is right?"
                                              ---Lewis Carroll
---------

The off-white wad
of spit
slop-jellied air,
arced in the relative shape
of the roof
of a half-formed
oval
toward a median strip
of manicured grass next to curb,

but morphed prelanding ...
to, of all things, Golf Ball,

then slipped on that turf
with a breath-discharging
"Oomph!"

then skidded, tripped,
then rolled in brief
to quit
at my feet---

or rather, beside
the sidewalk
and on my right
but inches from my foot---

and looked up at me
as he lay
porcelain
white
in dimpled splendor
agleam,
in expectant repose.

In a courteous,
conduct-
becoming-a-gentleman
manner.

As if to await my passing
before creeping out
to cross
the walkway.

Behind me.

Although my morning
constitutional
took me about
the golf course's chain-linked
perimeters,

as I neared my walk's end on
the far side
of intervening Plum Road,

my pockets' spaces
already
depleted
with errant balls,

this latter arrival took me,
to my surprise,
by surprise.

Since before the rising sun
had cast its pale light
the breadth
of a cloud-free sky
to precrisp this day,

birds had preened,
sung,
scolded,
argued,
celebrated
in flagrant good cheer
to their hearts' contentments,

growing silent only
while red-tailed Hawk
every so often
threw
her chilling shadow
over ground
and its miscellany of contents
while aloft
in searcher's flight,

her sharp eyes focused.

Like auditory projectiles
snaking
through a section
of the golf course fence,
undecipherable
fragments
of early golfers'
amical voice spikes---

accompanied
less frequently
by metallic ball-contact
clinks!---

thrummed at times sharply,
other times faintly,
at random on
the tight-drawn leather
of my sensitive eardrums.

"I think I'm lost,"
said Golf Ball in luminous voice,
thereby utterly
splinterizing
my up-till-now-mild
reverie.

And posing
a plausible threat
to my mental equilibrium.

"Hold on," I blurted,
not trusting my good sense.
"You, a golf ball,
just now spoke
to me?"

"Not a word did I say,"
said Golf Ball.
"Perhaps you daydream---
but maybe not."

He smiled like
a miniaturized albino
pumpkin
that'd been splashed,
in uncannily
symmetrical
precision,
with perfectly formed dimps
all over.

Although the grin
distorted
dimples
across the front of his head,
which, if truth be strictly
adhered to,
was all
he amounted to:
i.e., a head

(no
body
tucked
itself beneath
for support,
none
at all)---

and even some at the sides---

flattening a few,
distorting others,
making
still
others
vanish.

But he did flash front
yellow teeth---

just uppers, though---

at midsmile
that seriously tarnished
his what passed for face's
otherwise altogether white.

Probably doesn't brush
or floss at all,
I thought to myself.

"I could've sworn
you said,
'I think I'm lost,'
or words
something
to that effect," I said.

"Nope. Didn't happen.
Though come
to think,
now you mention it,
I do seem
a tad disoriented
at this very moment."

In the street
a blue Pontiac two-door
sedan
revved by in the far lane,

wasting gas,

the driver's right hand
at the top
of the wheel

steering,

his left cupping a tiny cell
glued
to the side
of his skull

as he gabbed
on said phone
con brio,

the passenger an old man
with prominent
shaggy
salt-and-pepper brows
wearing
a Tigers cap
jammed tight that forced
his ears---

with sporadic sprigs
of silvered hair
alongside---

to jut
at spooked attention.

Gaunt and leaning forward,
rotating upper body
on the pass-by
to accommodate
his limited range
of vision,
the rider gaped
though
the closed window.

At me.

By my ear,
the Pontiac
for sure could
profit
from a tune-up.

(to be cont'd)