in your thirties everything needs fixing. i bought a toolbox
for this. filled it with equipment my father once owned
to keep our home from crumbling. i purchased tools with
names & functions unknown to me. how they sat there
on their shelf in plastic packaging with price tags screaming:
hey lady, you need this!  like one day i could give my home
& everything living inside it the gift of immortality, to be
a historical monument the neighbors would line up
to visit even after i’m gone & shout: damn that’s a nice house!
i own a drill now, with hundreds & hundreds of metal pieces
i probably won’t use or use in the wrong ways but what
i’m certain of, is still, the uncertainty of which tools repair
the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow’s feet
under my eyes, the stiff knee or bad back.
& maybe this is how it is—how parts of our small universe
dissolve like sugar cubes in water—a calling to ask us
to slow our busy breathing so we can marvel
at its magic. because even the best box of nails are capable
of rust. because when i was a child i dropped
a cookie jar in the shape of noah’s ark,
a family heirloom that shattered to pieces.
the animals broke free, zebras ran under
the kitchen table, the fractured lion roared by
the front door & out of the tool cabinet
i snagged duck tape & ceramic glue. pieced each beast
back to their intended journey.  because that afternoon
when my father returned from work i confessed
& he sat the jar on the counter only to fill it with
pastries. how the cracks of imperfection mended by
my hands laid jagged. chipped paint sliced across a rhino’s neck.
every wild animal lined up against the boat—
& a flood of sweet confections waiting inside.

After I fumble another conversation about love, I think, 
Bird wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, played 
coy as if everyone didn’t already know what #33 would do, 
daggers for eyes, soft hands ready to guide that orange ball 
exactly where he said he would. I’ve taken shots before, 
fear be damned, and missed more than I made, 
gone up and down the court enough to know 
halftime won’t fix everything. 
I’m bruised, my knee barks, my shot is shit, and I 
just need the bank to be open for once, for the glass to 
kiss the ball back, softly. I’m always writing to you 
like a last-ditch prayer, a heave from halfcourt 
moving like a meteor, like I could turn this white page of 
nothing into a night sky, these words constellations, 
old messages that would say in a hundred different 
shapes that I love you. All I ever wanted was Bird’s game, 
quietly telling opponents the spot on the floor where he would 
rise, after a screen and two dribbles, in the corner like a yellow 
sun and let the ball fly. I’m always writing to you 
to remind myself that all love poems are about the future. 
Under the bright lights of this metaphor, I’m digging deep, not 
vanishing when it matters most, to find the heart to take a shot 
when the clock winds down to nothing. The X-Man, 
Xavier McDaniel, laughs when he tells of how Bird took his heart once. 
You already know you have mine when the clock says 
zero my no-look mouth, my honey crossover, my silky net.