A poem

Childhood inspires me.

 

Portrait of a Girl With a Basketball

There was a gym with a tile floor

and two doors

and the noisy collisions of sneaker-clad firecrackers,

attitude bouncing off tired walls

louder than its air-filled counterparts.

 

There was a girl with a pink shirt

and two braids trying to reach it

and a basketball bouncing

suffused with determination

up and down

up and

down

towards her sneakers.

 

There were shadows lengthening on tired walls,

and the two doors kept getting closer

like the girl’s two braids

reaching past her pink-shirted shoulders

and there was a basketball

wishing for yesterday,

when her sneakers didn’t seem

so far away.