Amy Tengelics ~

Lying in a hospital bed while awaiting heart surgery, I looked at my teen daughter and my parents, then smugly pointed out the irregular slashes on the cardiac monitor.

"See these?" I said. "They're called PVCs. My doctor is going to fix them. Make them all go away."

The asymmetrical rhythm, a frequent and annoying pattern of multiple skipped heartbeats, had plagued me for the last three years, despite my swearing off caffeine and alcohol and trying different cardiac and thyroid medicines under my doctor's supervision.

This boy of mine tried
to be a sportsman.
Jane and I watched his team,
heedless ducklings clutching
plastic bats behind the T-ball,
the ball up high, right there
where they couldn’t miss it,
but they did. When shouts from
other parents roused us from our chat,
we tossed encouragement
into the ballfield’s air, no matter
whose kid got a hit.

Things got serious the next summer,
one level up onto the honest-to-God
Little League ladder, raucous parents
lobbing their frustration
at any boy not quite up to speed,
their snarls slapping the sunstruck air.
Our sons begged to quit, and we let them.