March 9, 2010

the basketball game

It was like traveling back in time. I saw myself on the court

with the other ‘tweens, the gym echoing every sneaker squeaking

on the parquet during warm-ups, the coach with his shoulder rubs of support

before the opening buzzer sounded. And then, an animal tension leaking

between opponents just after tip-off, the fleshy scramble and scurry,

a kind of disassembly into instinct, bodies indelicate with touch,

the rules of classroom decorum happily forgotten and instead, a flurry

of colt legs, a cat’s cradle of spindly arms. It didn’t take much

to lift my body from the bleachers and lean into the curve of the ball

as it arced toward home, my heart pounding as if it hadn’t ever left at all.