Booty Green
From the outside he’s a killer
& we know it.
We’ve tried hemming Chris inside,
below the key—
started off playing HORSE
then quickly switched
to BULLSHIT soon as parents
headed on indoors—
come dusk, we begin
telling lies
about length & behind-
the-back shots,
about how sweet
our selves are. We’ve given up
the simon says of Around the World
for Booty Green, a game
like 21, only meaner—
blacker, jack.
The rules: are none.
The rules: no fouls
called, no traveling,
no out-of-bounds. Just play,
boy, all elbows & ass
whuppins, fatal angles.
Amri—his name
a lion—barrels down
the lane like a shotgun
bride. Rejected.
Yo mama.
Troy hanging from the rim
like a suicide, saving
himself. The shortest,
I let them fight it out
in the paint, preying
on rebounds—believe it
or not—learning to toss up
hooks along the side, their arc
high, sly as a covenant. Mo Fo
of the Sacred Swish, her
holiness. And so
it came to pass—
but we keep it, head instead
for the bucket
as if an endzone, gaining air
like the black balcony
of the movie theater, talking
back to the screens
we each post. The ball
popcorn to toss.
Brick. Chump,
I thot you knew.
The Easter we’ve just eaten—
we angel against
each other till borne
by air, gaining ground
on God. Between the garage
& someone’s mama’s
car—Watch the paint,
nigger—we soar
& psych & sing.
Here, to stuff
don’t mean your mouth or the Resurrection
bird now splayed
open indoors, but grabbing the rim
like a grenade pin. Not
that I’d know. Fingers round
the hoop, an eye
jabbed soft in its socket—
my glasses fly, a bird
almost extinct. No apology—
cowboying, we pick up
& go again, pound the pavement
to pidgin, palming the ball
the way Chris would grab
smaller boys’ foreheads—
Crystal ball, tell me all—
his hands reading fortunes
we pretend we’ll make.
Out here we charge, trying
to father ourselves—
our dads inside, wise,
where it’s still warm.
We laugh at the way
Chris, like the god he thought
he was, took a new last name—
Fontaine—trying to pull down
babes on the rebound. Don’t
know how with that
jheri curl juice. But today, fool,
all our heads are clean
as dinner-table talk, as a broke dick
dog. Our dads asleep
in front of the game
or divorced, having dinner
with new families—or alone—
while over dirty dishes
our mothers laugh.
Here on this angly, angry
asphalt, no matter what
the songs say, love or faith
don’t make the grade—
one manchild against the rest,
we dog each other out
so later we can take shots
from the outside
where Chris breaks free,
prodigal, almost to the lawn—
his jumper murder. Every sunk
shot sends him to the line,
the rest of us panting
& bent & catching
breath. If he misses
it’s sudden death
& we’re all hoping
to reach 21. Last requests?
he says bouncing
that ball bald
as a granny, or a baby,
two things
we’re trying to prove
we’re not. No way,
we holler. Up again
for the rebound, savior
that never comes—the ball falling
like a guillotine, or the pumpkin
the executioner tests it on,
falling like the dark
we barely notice has grown up
around us—the gruff
voice of a father
summoning us inside
to dine on humble pie & crow
before it grows cold.