In Garfield, Washington, the second of three
speed-trap cities slicing over into
Idaho on the way in which residence from Spokane,
there’s a gray-going-white basketball
furred from use and publicity, deflated
solely sufficient to discourage extended play,
within the grass by the general public court docket, beside
the little park’s restroom, the best soonest
possibility en route. It pleases me once more
to identify it and, earlier than returning to the automobile,
to shoot two or three baskets. It should,
with all the pieces else, be buried beneath snow
half of every winter. You lose the information,
you shake the hour of seated transit off
and stand quiet with no matter you’ve seen:
a tractor ready to drag the large buck
from the double yellow line, the pheasant vanishing
within the bush, the lengthy vivid flowering wheat
or waves of grain within the anthem space wind
evokes. Bounce it two or thrice and discover,
on the 4 finger pads of your proper hand,
a meridian bowed throughout the ball, the grace,
remembered, by really feel, of backspin. Unseen
mark of expertise, in a groove, on the line,
clock stopped, to get it to roll again to you.
This poem seems within the August 2026 print version.
