11
Feb
BASKETBALL WEATHER
Basketball Weather by stumblesome
they
as they clung
as momentary expansion they clung
as skeletons settle in the spine of a bed
momentary skeleton expansion in the spine of a growing up
clung in bed
they never held what was
never fought
never fought growing up one thought per day
“Right, because what’s your truth is my falsehood, what’s my truth is your falsehood and vice versa. Well look, look at me, I’m only happy when I’m angry, when I’m sad, when I can play the fool, when I can be what people want me to be rather than be myself.”
one morning a dreaming ticket taker woke up and found money at the foot of her bed
she picked it up and noticed the same currency on the walls and in the veins of the carpet
all family geography spills from the den’s best trophy box and becomes a new shade on the wall
a perfect ear in pipes anonymous in shape (“there’s hope”) or the seldom-read light of a storage room
history books read by lamplight in a teepee
the silence held ringing by clean old movies
and unused swingset parts that fill the bone with catalysts
never a smidgen of an anecdote ever left a trace
in the slung won morning light shifting –
two dresses hang in the closet like buffaloes running on the polar ice caps – the light shifted and knocked over a vase of fake flowers, disturbing the calligraphies, one by one I’m overhearing murder mysteries, waiting for snippets of the ice age to come along and cover us up
like a heavy blanket that you never recover from.
stretching the day old hand to follow the wet leaf string to fall from expert and become a new shade on the wall, amazing found between the floor and the ceiling all the frogs and flies on ice and the wonderstruck mermaid looks on with angel eyes temperament of an
earthtone lambswool coiled autumn sweater or side-buttoned bright orange poly blend warm-up pants in December
a seasonal canopy for wrist band champions a duffel bag with your orange number embroidered on the side
when the bite of the hydrant’s chill comes nipping at your navel you lay to rest the backwards chimney
hop dead tigers in polkadotted skirts
this is basketball weather and I’m late for practice
shrunken game days in the frozen lake bubbles
I want to run until my legs churn
no train in the garage or a smidgen of a sarcastic anecdote
