SECRET PLACES OF A BOY’S HEART (basketball)

Back then, I was Carl Braun,
tossing up set shots in the 50s
at the hollowed out Dixie Cup
taped to the wall of my room,
the basket anchored at the height of my arms
extended upward without jumping,
the “rock,” a ping pong ball,
making it easy to dunk
before dunking became the norm.
I supplemented my shots
with a simple dice game,
inscribing the results in dime store notebooks,
with wins and losses by original NBA teams,
like the Rochester Royals and the Syracuse Nats.
I practiced my own play-by-play commentary
before Play Station made such imagination obsolete.
I thought, perhaps, I’d be a sports announcer
before that dream died, when the room
to my secret childhood was rudely opened.