A GAME OF CATCH

Seemingly amiable play becomes anything but in a distinguished poet's brief, disturbing story, first published 40 years ago in the New Yorker. When Scho finds he can't play hard catch with Monk and Glennie because he doesn't have a mitt, he climbs a tree and gleefully informs them that his will controls their every move. Monk finally grows annoyed enough at this game to climb after Scho, who falls to the ground. ``I want you to do whatever you're going to do for the whole rest of your life,'' he croaks—in mingled triumph and misery—after the departing pair. Moser gives this encounter a deceptively idyllic setting, grassy and sun-drenched, while Scho's angry, dejected posture makes a powerful contrast to the others' poised and graceful remoteness. Like Julie Brinckloe's Playing Marbles (1988), an exploration of play-as-metaphor whose symbolic levels will be more perceptible to adults than to children. (Picture book. 8+)