inversion

Last night, watching the baseball game
under cover of a full moon, I wondered how 30,000 people
could sit this close to one another and not go crazy,
not feel their space crunched by boozy revelry
or the off-color remarks about the missed play at home base.

And I was amazed even further when,
after the final inning, we all shuffled down the long ramp
of the stadium's innards to its single exit on Townsend.
So many people and not a single mishap or thrown punch,
no fanatical drama unfolding between rivals, no need
for police intervention, or an EMT, or bomb squad.

At game's end, we simply streamed toward the door like fish,
not even stopping for unraveling shoelaces, the bright signage
of ad slogans, or a sudden craving for chocolate or cigarettes.

In front of me, an oafishly muscled man was holding onto the hand
of his thin little girl, stooping slightly to steer her forward.
And behind me, four buzzed college boys were discussing the last out,
a stunning catch nearly to the home run wall.

And I, too, headed downstream, pulled along by the sheer momentum
of numbers, this perfect inversion of solitude bringing neither
chaos nor collision but the reprieve of synchronicity, and I laughed
at how easy it was, after all, to accept that which promised to carry you,
without complaint or demand, toward safety.