The men were always taking off their shirts
to show that they had muscles sprouting hair,
sometimes sweating, bloody, streaked with dirt
the clever studio had painted there;
you didn’t have to guess what they were like—
bony boys who’d got a little older
and finally put away their childish bikes
and grown a thicker neck and wider shoulder.
The women, though, had never been mere girls
with runny noses and as flat as us
or worn those bangs, and bows in gradeschool curls—
a thrilling thing had happened to their chests
and MGM kept the secret well
that such silk legs were ever good at baseball.