Makin’ Jump Shots

Posted by DJL on Apr 5, 2014 in Poetry | 0 comments

I’ll be honest, I don’t follow basketball all that much anymore, but beyond having so many friends avidly following the “March madness” that culminates this weekend, I used to spend hours upon hours shooting hoops with guys from the neighborhood while in junior high school. We’d talk about school, about friends, about girls. We’d play “pig” and “horse,” one-on-one or two-on-two, depending on who was around. We’d shoot free throws and practice our lay-ups well past when the time when the sun had settled and by necessity we’d peer dimly at the basket by the light of the lamps adorning the driveway where our make-shift court existed.

This poem by Michael Harper brought all that back and a little more. And so I offer it to George, Brent, Luke, and the other assorted cast of characters with whom I’d while away the hours of my youth. I couldn’t have asked for better friends.

Makin’ Jump Shots

He waltzes into the lane
’cross the free-throw line,
fakes a drive, pivots,
floats from the asphalt turf
in an arc of black light,
and sinks two into the chains.

One on one he fakes
down the main, passes
into the free lane
and hits the chains.

A sniff in the fallen air—
he stuffs it through the chains
riding high:
“traveling” someone calls—
and he laughs, stepping
to a silent beat, gliding
as he sinks two into the chains.

“Makin’ Jump Shots,” by Michael S. Harper, from Images of Kin.