Taken for granted,
based in legends, no snow
on the ground for March Madness,
the time when city states
and copper towns
vie for superiority
on the backs and legs of native
sons on artificial hardwoods.
A sign of spring, these kids
in hunded-dollar high-tops,
lit-heeled neon technospringy,
air-boosted upper-jumpers,
Armani warm-ups
touted by the money-makers,
the choice of shoe jackers
and Eastern European tourists.
No snow, they say, down below
when cager flocks gather
for basket battles, Flivvers and Pilots,
hues of Devil, Model Towners, Iron Men,
Copper Kings and Doughboys,
chasing dreams, all but four to fail.

I don't doubt dreams,
only the authorship.

To play for it all,
the Big Gamimba,
on the television,
in front of everyone,
and to win,
to win at sixteen or eighteen,
barely out of babyhood
to stand on Olympus
and then what,
with a whole life spread
out ahead
like a sloped gauntlet?

Not sport,
something else.