LOCKED IN by Mark J. Mitchell

           Baseball is the only game you can see on the radio.
           —Phil Hirsh, The Chicago Tribune, 1985


The door knob’s gone missing. There’s no leaving
today.  And tomorrow won’t miss you 
until cool sunrise charts its early path.
Get up. Draw your bath. Light will bleed through

what was once a lock. Wait for afternoon:
The radio proffers a task, a game
to carry sunlight through drawn drapes, false doors.
Hear Summer. No two plays are the same.



Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just published by Norfolk Publishing. Starting from Tu Fu   was recently published by Encircle Publications. A new collection and a novel are forthcoming. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster, where he made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, he works doing guy stuff, go figure. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full length collections so far. His first chapbook won the Negative Capability Award. Titles on request.
A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/
A primitive web site now exists: https://www.mark-j-mitchell.square.site/
I sometimes tweet @Mark J Mitchell_Writer