home court advantage

so hoosier to be hospitable

to basketball hoops: what goes up 

don’t come down. in this sense, 

I’m proud to be backwards. 

our new neighborhood, built in the trickle-

down era, blessed with remnants of bird

& magic, fathers & sons learning how

to spell errantly. I lift the rock 

like my little one. the sweet swish

of privilege: nothing but net.

white men can’t jump, debunked.

ask everyone I leapfrogged

to land this. when I say hello

to my neighbor, is it the song

of myself or of cougar

mellencamp? maybe the cadence

was always the same. maybe

shade is how you make it 

when good fences point out

how low you’ve been mowing. 

we’re still green enough to field 

insecurity about suburban blood

oaths, the circumference of our 

progeny’s noggin, the first dad’s 

day my old man returned 

the favor of not finding time. 

tomorrow’s another ball dropped

in a flower bed, on top of a tulip tilting

away from the long shadow of mortgage,

of marriage. I was conditioned as a kid

to see running as a gift, with a to & a from. 

as bronson bounces, the wet cement around

my heart hardens. the goal is going nowhere. 

Chris Speckman is the writing center coordinator for Indianapolis Public Schools and leads youth outreach programs for Butler University and the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. He is working on a manuscript about fathers, sons and “NBA Jam.”