Shooting Baskets In An Empty Gym Poem by Jared Carter

It's an old gym, but the janitor knows me.
It's an old floor, too, with scuffed red
and blue lines, and the finish worn away
in places. The windows are painted white;
up high, where the light doesn't reach,
a sparrow flutters through the girders.
My shoes squeak when I shoot the hook;
the backboard booms, the rim stays silver
long after I've grabbed the rebound.
When I strip it from twenty feet out
the net makes a sound, too - a sigh.
If this were a language, you could read
silence in the fake, words in my dribbling
to the top of the key, turning, shooting.


From Situation Normal. First published in Sandscript.