The Ball Poem (early 1990's)

A last second basket
An on-target bullet

How can a game be so important?
But it is
But it is

Their faces
when that ball entered
that sacred hole
were horrible

Funeral faces
Tears
Youth made old

For sport?
No.

For immortality

Tears
On sculpted bodies
Mixed with
Sweat

And they couldn't speak
To one another

They could only look up
At the expired, dead, buried clock
0:00
And the score
A single point behind

They felt their lives -
Meaningless

This sorrow faded away
But
Everytime they
Picked up a basketball
They remembered that moment
And they felt themselves die
And they knew
That life wasn't
Forever