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Two Days
Two days after my grandfather died
and two days after my mother
slammed down the phone
and cried and cried,
my cousin and I argued baseball
in my grandmother's basement.
There was nothing else to talk about.
It was 1985.
That afternoon,
after I touched my grandfather's hands,
cold as popsicles,
my cousin, a Cubs fan,
sat by the covered pool table,
his 1984 Topps Ryne Sandberg
cupped in his hands
as he read off stats.
Upstairs, relatives argued
in my grandmother's living room,
sitting on furniture
no one ever sat on,
while downstairs,
our baseball cards lay arranged
on the industrial carpet like saints.
-By David Jones
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