In South Philadelphia the b-ball hoops
in the playgrounds and parks mostly had no nets,
no nets on the rims—they’d been stolen
or ripped down after being torn by leaping teenagers.
When my son was a boy the difference mattered
because he loved basketball, he loved the Sixers,
he loved shooting baskets and there is beautiful satisfaction
when a good shot falls through the net—
“Swish” we said—“Nothin’ but net”—
and so as I moved around town I always noticed
where the hoops had nets
so Nick and I could shoot there.

The difference mattered.  Life should be a certain way
but often the right way becomes unavailable—
the nets disappear—you have to be alert
to find the courts where a perfect shot really does go
swish.  Life has disappointments
but you don’t want your boy to feel that life is
mainly or mostly disappointing
or that the Sixers on TV are absurdly far from his real life—

because he needs to believe
that life allows moments of sublimity—swish—

so even now when Nick is almost forty
wherever I see good intact nets on the rims
I make a mental note for half a second:
Nick and I could play here.
The difference matters.

The day broke a record for cold, for us wanting
To be anywhere but outside, & it was late
May, the weekend we called Memorial. My mother
Is a veteran, but that is a story for another time,
& we were driving into the mother of rivers state,
My youngest son, named after two men, one who
Turned a trumpet into a prayer, the other who
Before a piano became whatever those who know say
G-d sounds like, me, & friends, who like me, imagined
Watching their sons trade baskets with strangers
Was some kind of holy. Around us was more granite
Than Black folks & I carried Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man
In my knapsack, hesitant to return to all the astonishing
Ways we make each other suffer &, still, somehow,
Survive, & astonished most by how we remember. I’ve
Forgotten my fair share of things that matter. But
Who am I kidding? The weekend was about
Basketball. We’d driven three hours to this colder
Weather. My youngest boy hoped he’d heat up once
A ball touched his hands. Did I say we named the child
After the idiosyncrasies of Jazz, all because as children
I don’t think my wife & I knew enough ambition
To save us from what we’d encounter. These were the days

When he and the nine he suited up with desired
Little more than to hear the rasp of a ball against whatever
Passed for wood in a gym with a hoop. There is something
To be said about how basketball makes men of boys and boys
Of men. The ref who chattered with us parents wondered
Why a cousin the age of the ballers ate chips for breakfast.
The other team had a player who made me think, though
She be but little she is fierce, as she, the only girl on
The court slipped a jewel into that hovering crown
We cheered, even those of us whose boys sought to dribble
& jump shot their way to the glory of a win. & when Miles
Came down as if he knew what would happen. I didn’t hold
My breath. A crossover, the ball then swung around his back,
The kid before him lost on some raft in a wild river. Maybe
He knew the ball would fall true because he turned around
To watch us as much as to get back on defense. We laughed
& laughed & watched as kids barely large enough to launch
all of that need at a target did so, again & again.

Five then four for a ninety-second penalty
then five again down at the far end
then a hurricane of green and white
hurling this way with a pass a pivot
then what seems a pas de deux then
another pass as the puck whacks against
the see-through plastic barrier and there’s
the hawkeyed Griff modest (as always)
and steady as a chess knight skating back
back then floating sideways as the puck wheels
faster than my eyes can follow and now
he’s got it and he’s heading for their goalie
a kid so big so geared up with his blocker
in his right and his trapper in his left suited up
in his Hannibal Lector death-white face mask
so that you have to wonder how a puck slapped
even at a hundred miles an hour could ever
get past that dragon at the gate as one then two
blue blurs come closing in on him intent only
on stealing back that speck that priceless puck
at any cost as now the Griffer shifts then passes
then retrieves the spheroid thing as now
he feints off to the left then slams it there
yes there right there into the corner that
too late squeezes shut and bam!
like that it’s 1-0 and someone’s father
is banging on the plastic barrier as shouts
go roaring up from the metal bleachers
and Griffer’s grandpa’s going Woo hoo! before
he remembers to compose himself once more.

And with that the game goes on again
and soon the players morph into other kids
who look like Griff but with different strides
and numbers on their back as some skate out
though the team door and some skate in.
And soon the kids on the other team
do their quid pro quo to even up the score.

And so it goes, week in week out the winter
through, a sport you never thought to follow
until your grandson took it up, practicing it
even in his living room, where his parents
have let him set up a net on the ancient
wooden farmhouse floor into which he slams
the puck again and then again hour after hour
while good old Huddie shakes himself
then shuffles off into the other room, a game
where Griffin seems to know all the stats
and teams and players and even dreams about
in a world where grim opponents keep coming
for him, where he must somehow face
the white-masked monster and send the missive
he’s been charged with wheeling through.