Ayo! Let’s Run! (a Profection Wheel)

Black bodies dead sprinting
up and down the asphalt
joins with lovely cadence
808 of ball bounce
producing perfect tune

competing worship—elbows thrown for fun

fingers quick-work lace
over eager to 
join this clashing love
skyhooks V. stepbacks
smoke for all ages

I stand, foot-leap, court-rush, “Ayo! Let’s Run!”

Ty Chapman is an author and poet based in Minnesota. He is the author of Sarah Rising (Beaming 2022); Looking for Happy, a Minnesota Book Award finalist (Beaming 2023); Stokes, written with John Coy (Lerner 2024); James Finds the Beat (Free Spirit 2024); and Tartarus (Button Poetry 2024). Additionally, he co-edited the poetry anthology, Witness: Poems to Address the Past, Present, and Future of Policing, with his friend and collaborator, Ari Tison. Ty was a 2024 Cave Canem fellow; a 2022 Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellow; a Mirrors & Windows fellow; and a Mentor Series fellow. He holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.