Leland Quarterly | Fall 2021
Chamberlain Park Connor Lane Two basketball courts, double rims. Stout water tower down the slope. Ball would bounce against the barbed wire on a miss, if it bounced enough. Yeah, here is good. I remember. And she’s been talking shit for weeks. That H.O.R.S.E. wouldn’t end my way, and she’s a shooter (she’s not). Two hand release, pushing off one leg, a half jump, land on one leg. Arched back. Line drives off the front rim, backboard, fence. It’s summer and sticky heat hangs from our shoulders, our fingertips, our lips. Humidity pulls my body and her body down into the concrete court, dragging into tree roots and acorns and scraggled grass, into the dirt of the earth. I want to eat your lips and swallow you whole and “you’re too far apart, standing all the way over there”
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