In Garfield, Washington, the second of three
speed-trap towns cutting over into
Idaho on the way home from Spokane,
there is a gray-going-white basketball
furred from use and exposure, deflated
only enough to discourage prolonged play,
in the grass by the public court, beside
the little park’s restroom, the simplest soonest
option en route. It pleases me again
to spot it and, before returning to the car,
to shoot two or three baskets. It must,
with everything else, be buried under snow
half of each winter. You lose the news,
you shake the hour of seated transit off
and stand quiet with whatever you’ve seen:
a tractor waiting to pull the giant buck
from the double yellow line, the pheasant vanishing
in the bush, the long bright flowering wheat
or waves of grain in the anthem area wind
inspires. Bounce it two or three times and find,
at the four finger pads of your right hand,
a meridian bowed across the ball, the grace,
remembered, by feel, of backspin. Unseen
mark of experience, in a groove, at the line,
clock stopped, to get it to roll back to you.

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This poem appears in the August 2026 print edition.