Ode to Diana Taurasi

I call Michael Jordan the Diana Taurasi of basketball.
Diana Taurasi not giving a motherfuck what men say.
Even when it’s nice things.
Cause it’s never fully nice things.

When I say Diana’s name
I remember the yearsago taste of sweat
on my teammate’s tongue.
I remember leather & rubber
balled into a lifeline.

Should the WNBA lower the height of the rims from 10ft to 8ft?
“Might as well put us in skirts and back in the kitchen.”
I only listen to women speak.

Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor were drafted
to the Phoenix Mercury in 2004. They married in 2017.
I am learning that love is nondual. No need
to set an atrophied neck against hardened fists again.
I put vanilla in my protein shakes now

& I love a girl with a basketball hoop
in her shower. She fingers me
with uncalloused hands,
hands that never learned harm.
After I cum I call her MVP.
She laughs & calls me
Most Improved & I never knew
warm water until now.

Diana is a seven-time all-star player
so I kiss my love in our old high
school gym & tell her a man
could never matter here or anywhere.

Leslie Joy Ahenda is the assistant poetry editor for Augur Magazine. She was educated at the University of Victoria and is currently pursuing an MFA at the University of Guelph. She is an alumna of the Emerging Writers' Intensive at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Her work has appeared in CV2, filling Station, Plenitude Magazine, and more. Twitter: @lesliejoyahenda