Poetry+-+May+5


 * Shooting Baskets at Dusk**

//Michael McFee//

He will never be happier than this, lost in the perfectly thoughtless motion of shot, rebound, dribble, shot, his mind removed as the gossipy swallows that pick and roll, that give and go down the school chimney like smoke in reverse as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots, the brick wall giving the dribble back to his body beginning another run from foul line, corner, left of the key, the jealous rim guarding its fickle net as he shoots, rebounds, dribbles, shoots, absorbed in the rhythm that seems to flow from his fingertips to the winded sky and back again to this lonely orbit of shot, rebound, dribble, shot, until he is just a shadow and a sound though the ball still burns in his vanished hands.

In shooting baskets at dusk the author remenices about a young boy, mabye five years old, playing basketball. The narrator seems to be the father of the young boy, watching the boy trying to score a basket. The tone of the poem seems to be very happy and remeniscent of an old memory. The basketball rim is personified as sort of a jealous and selfish person trying to hold the hoop away from the boy. I think the repetition of shot, rebound, dribble, shot shows the struggle of the young man.