My Baltimore Oriole stars
Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson,
same uniform, same family name.
Maybe they were brothers!

One morning at Little League, Coach
heard me going on about the Robinsons.
He called me to the dugout, sat me down.

Frank and Brooks Robinson are not brothers, Mark.
Frank Robinson is a negro. Brooks Robinson is white.
Men like that are never brothers, you see?
It isn’t nat-u-ral.

Coach really knew a lot about baseball.
Sitting next to him on the bench,
what in the world did a kid know?

Mark Zimmermann lived in Japan from 1993-2001, teaching literature and writing courses at Ibaraki University while also working as a freelance journalist. Since 2004 he’s lived in Milwaukee with his wife and cats. He is currently finishing up a poetry manuscript centered on his time in Japan.