Hoops on Red Widow Road
Now that the Revolution Is Finished
I notice the young couple
because they’re really lovely,
but my attention is on the young
men playing basketball.
I stop and watch, telling myself
I should butt in, show them
moves they’ve never seen before,
completely forgetting that my game
has so much rust on it
the ball would feel
like an anchor in my hands.
The longer I watch, the more
I realize these young men
are quite superb, burning up
the frayed nets with jump shots
crisp and clean as the early
evening sky—I walk on, wondering
why I so foolishly threw away
my old Earl Monroe jersey
and if I can ever get it back.
Now that the Revolution Is Finished
I’m going back to happiness—
the drink and be merry kind.
Look at the moon and the faces
looking at the moon—people,
not just ideas and a cause I
swore was everything. I never
liked to dance, but tonight I’m
dancing until I drop into the arms
of any woman who wants me,
after I’ve spent the indulgent day
writing “the bluest river crests up
to shake my hand” and similar lines.
I’ve earned the right to forget,
to remember beauty and its nonsense.
Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections: Trying To Help the Elephant Man Dance (The Backwaters Press, 2007 ) and Just Beautiful from New York Quarterly Books, 2010. He has published poems in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Blackbird, Able Muse, Prairie Schooner, PANK, Bellevue Literary Review and Stand Magazine (U.K.) and has poems forthcoming in Gargoyle, A Narrow Fellow and DMQ Review among others. After many years in Queens and Brooklyn, he has moved to Cambridge with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong
