“MJ 96"

golden goblet of hoop dreams and sweat, submerged in

sea of skin, his sneaks like body: gold paths

mimicking the scent of every defender defeated, staining

a jersey marked “two three” — he lives the one -

his identity sweats at the end of the follow through

of stroke, the betta evolving into Jumpman,

legs split across my bedroom wall, homage to a physics

naysayers taught as folly, like the wright brothers

weren’t secretly mexican — my uncle told me y sabe todo -

knows that a high school team saying No doesn’t deny

your future, destiny found in a body’s weight upheld

by knuckles, a generation splitting

legs to the rim asking Swallow us

whole, let us be those rings gymnasts

set their Olympic records with,

those medals you too would hold, Jumpman -

’96, the start of a second three-peat, Rodman’s hair as bright

as the comets orbiting your father’s gunshot wounds,

the car you bought for him, you said nothing this time,

cried instead, ran back to the locker room knowing

it’s all coming out now, it’s all a release,

dedicated this ring to his father, a lineage sewn

into trademarks, sweatshops,

a father that can’t see his greatness now,

not in flesh, not in shitty courtside denim,

fledgling career resurgences, basketball team ownership,

to know how lonely the breeze flows

standing atop and

alone,

a fuck you of a kiss

blown to everything mouthing Won’t.