The University of North Carolina Press

News Bytes

March/April 1998


A Poem for March Madness

As March Madness consumes the country, Michael McFee reminds us of the pleasures of backyard hoops. "Shooting Baskets at Dusk" was included in the collection The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat: Poems by Fifteen Contemporary North Carolina Poets, which McFee edited.

Copyright (c) 1989, Michael McFee. Reproduction or distribution is prohibited without the express permission of the University of North Carolina Press.




Shooting Baskets at Dusk
by Michael McFee

He will never be happier than this,
lost in the perfectly thoughtless motion
of shot, rebound, dribble, shot,

his mind removed as the gossipy swallows
that pick and roll, that give and go
down the school chimney like smoke in reverse

as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,
the brick wall giving the dribble back
to his body beginning another run

from foul line, corner, left of the key,
the jealous rim guarding its fickle net
as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots,

absorbed in the rhythm that seems to flow
from his fingertips to the winded sky
and back again to this lonely orbit

of shot, rebound, dribble, shot,
until he is just a shadow and a sound
though the ball still burns in his vanished hands.


Return to News Bytes
Return to UNC Press Online