Poetry Collection: Maybe Now Basketball
I was voted most improved on my hometown’s first official girls’ basketball team after Title IX legislation passed. I still can’t shoot or dribble very well but, instead, write about basketball, fiddling with words all day. The working title of this collection in progress is Maybe Now Basketball and is dedicated to the Milwaukee Bucks. Here are some published poems from this collection.
Honoring Pat Connaughton
This summer, Pat Connaughton was traded to the Charlotte Hornets after seven years with the Milwaukee Bucks -- seven years of dedication to our community and to excellence. He inspired this poem which first appeared in Sports Literate. Gone but never forgotten!
Shape Shifter
Poseidon’s child, you taste
of salt and sand and ocean
creatures. Whatever
whomever whenever
your team fancies, you be-
come.
Sometimes eel
electric, you ripple then
wave, crest then
trough. Pump fake
half spin. Hesitate.
Penetrate. Score.
Sometimes dolphin,
you click coo,
dribble dribble pass,
then you are liquid
spine, wingless
flight, air walker.
Sometimes manta
ray, you deep idle,
shallow graze. Then
you circle orbit
cinch foes in your
molten cape.
Some say this game
is science, some say
farce. Some say cold
cash. But I know love,
I know God craft
when I see it.
Poseidon’s child, you taste
of salt and sand and ocean
creatures. Whatever
whomever whenever
your team fancies, you be-
come.
Sometimes eel
electric, you ripple then
wave, crest then
trough. Pump fake
half spin. Hesitate.
Penetrate. Score.
Sometimes dolphin,
you click coo,
dribble dribble pass,
then you are liquid
spine, wingless
flight, air walker.
Sometimes manta
ray, you deep idle,
shallow graze. Then
you circle orbit
cinch foes in your
molten cape.
Some say this game
is science, some say
farce. Some say cold
cash. But I know love,
I know God craft
when I see it.
WWA Honorable mention!
This poem won honorable mention in the state-wide 2024 Jade Ring Contest sponsored by the Wisconsin Writers Association. So thrilled!
First Official Girls' Basketball Team: Kaukauna, WI 1972
Congress members Bayh, Green and Mink hero
words like sex and equal into civil law for us.
Daughters of Kaukauna farmers and millwrights
and doctors. Daughters born to crush the Jesus nothing
carbs Father whacks on our tongues. Mary Karen Sue Barb
Rose. Schooled to shuck flesh from bone by brothers and
cousins and boys next door, these girls jab float hesitate
explode. The boys I know lust and creep and teach me
hide not seek. Yet these girls endure my dud layups,
my tulle and elect me most improved.
First Official Girls' Basketball Team: Kaukauna, WI 1972
Congress members Bayh, Green and Mink hero
words like sex and equal into civil law for us.
Daughters of Kaukauna farmers and millwrights
and doctors. Daughters born to crush the Jesus nothing
carbs Father whacks on our tongues. Mary Karen Sue Barb
Rose. Schooled to shuck flesh from bone by brothers and
cousins and boys next door, these girls jab float hesitate
explode. The boys I know lust and creep and teach me
hide not seek. Yet these girls endure my dud layups,
my tulle and elect me most improved.
First Place-winning poem
This poem won First Place in the state-wide 2024 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Muse Contest. To see me read it at the WFOP annual conference go to: https://www.instagram.com/wisconsin_fellowship_of_poets/.
Transference
A flash of breast.
Next to my locker. I
didn’t mean to see. Creamy
bell of damp columbine.
Then quick towel
as curtain, as veil.
In the valleys where her
muscle joins bone, rivers.
Toes curl glossy still,
like pebbles,
underwater fruit
of wet sand.
I want her
so badly
for you. Locker
twenty-four.
Transference
A flash of breast.
Next to my locker. I
didn’t mean to see. Creamy
bell of damp columbine.
Then quick towel
as curtain, as veil.
In the valleys where her
muscle joins bone, rivers.
Toes curl glossy still,
like pebbles,
underwater fruit
of wet sand.
I want her
so badly
for you. Locker
twenty-four.