In again Out again

Put words on the move,
on the make, make
your body move in hard play,

game

of hoops, or sex, the low post
reaching in, going back door,_
up and down, the double pump—

winter locker room

wet from boys changing,
wrestlers in martian
sweatsuits spitting

into cups

to make their weight,
b-ball players shambling
aboard the team bus, one styling

a Mao hat, one

Detroit porkpie & fedayeen scarf
and, sitting next to me
one Fruit of Islam soldier cap

Hey

my brother from New York,
check this comic:free from
YOUR BLACK MUSLIM BAKERY,

the Honorable

Elijah Muhammed’s
prophetic ‘toon, flying saucers
circling earth zapping every

White man—

my fellow guard laughing
“Now that’s you right here,
that’s the Jews,” little

black-ink White

men plummeting from a bank;
he played the Last Poets
The REVoLUtion

will NOT

be TELevised, I played
The Rite of Spring, our bus
chuffing past Nerfertiti’s

Hubcap World

and Diamond Dialysis Center—
We’ll lose tonight’s game,
our baby sky hooks drop

below the basket, the rim

that once grabbed the wedding
ring of a man dunking
and flayed his finger,

the skin

hanging from the rim,
a ladies’ pale glove—
One blood under flesh,

under

a marriage that goes
up and down, that dives
for the loose ball,

light-footed comedy

weighted and doomed like
the never-scoring old-time player
In again Out again

Finnegan,

a dribbling Onan, desire’s shadow
moving below the orbital
Dr. J and Butterbean Love

who

even as intern and seedling
were guarding us—
our fragrant Black saints

scorching the midair,

stars forever blind to us, buoyant,
kettle-hard piñatas
hoisted above the court

and out of reach.