Basketball

(previously published by the Georgia State Review)

When our father was young

but older to us, he would scavenge

the garage for a decent ball,

something with air, then lead us

outside to where the hoop awaited,

its net tangled and dangling

in the wind. You can imagine the rest:

two-on-twos to twenty-one

though I could barely reach rim,

and my little brother shooting

at an empty garbage bin. You can imagine

our dad—who knew Brooklyn

by its courts and could nearly dunk

before his knees turned to stone—

dribbling over our heads,

between our legs, a kiss off the board

as we clung to his shorts. Years later

of course, those games changed

tone as flip-flops grew to high-tops,

pats on the back to elbows in the chest.

And our dad, still the tallest, though

slowest by far—his double-pump layup

became something of a rarity, like spotting

an endangered bullfrog in the grass.