Excerpts
A Body of Athletics: An Introduction to the Possibilities of Sport
Before every basketball game, from rec league to high school, my mother told me, Knock ‘em dead. She never said, Good luck. * When Prairie Schooner asked me to solicit twenty to forty pages of writing for a “sports themed” issue, I was in a castle in Umbria, Italy, reading Pedro Salinas, writing poems and …
Dennis
Death has always had a prominent place in my mind. . . . I’ve come close at least fifty times.Dennis Rodman All we want is to never die, but God loves mostthe man who offers what he cherishes. In ‘93 they found you asleep in your carwith a loaded rifle in your lap. You said …
Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman’s Daughter Got Her Period on TV
and thought she was dying. I was in Algebra–-my period an axiomnot on cable–-shamed by the red flame on rags betweenmy legs. I got mine the week before baseball tryouts,thought I was sick with dark slick shit, not eggs. Dr. Quinn on TV and me, shamed by the red-ragged flame. Betweenmy math-mad, baseball-coaching dad asking, …
Boxing Out
I never had hops, so I got on at Bertha Ross Park the same wayI kept my spot on the middle school squad: immaculatelyfree-throwing with follow through, flicked wrist left hanging for the imaginary game winner when winner meant fly girlfriendinstead of sulking solo in the gym corner like I was backat the Spring Formal …
last summer of innocence
there was Noella who knew I was sweetbut cared enough to bother with me that summer when nobody diedexcept for boys from other schools but not us, for which our motherslifted his holy name & even let us skip some Sundays to go to the parkor be where we had no business being talking to …
Catch
I worked at a residential mental health facility for children. I was part of the Native American unit that mostly managed Indian children. Resident Adam, 16, was from the Klamath/Modoc tribe. His father was in prison, mother was an active substance abuser. Meth. Adam lived with his grandparents until he started alcohol and marijuana and …
Between Practice
1. Afternoons in Florida while my favorite jocular jockish cousin suffered summer school, I climbed the tall hot fence of the elementary school behind his house to practice layups and dream of dunks. 2. I was 13, my mother was on a Caribbean cruise ship in a state of longing, her husband was on a …
Race/Race
stock strain family line breed blood skin shape of the head of the pack animal human judge better fitter swiftly to find foot horse car run for your life around town the block the camp to the top the finish contend compete in for against the other the not so great not even in …
In the Land of Kan’an
Hayya 'ala s-salah. Hayya 'ala 'l-falah. Farid answers the call. Stands between two men that connect him to a row of two dozen others, to fourteen centuries of millions more. All facing al-Baytu l-ʿAtīq: The Primordial House, home of the Black Stone. A stone whiter than milk when it fell from Paradise only to be …