Proving It

She leans against that long swoop of metal. A small town in Wisconsin with a public court lit     after dark. I tell her that this is not like home. She lets the ball fall from the crook of her wrist. It bounces itself into a kind of drumroll, a decrescendo of higher pitched notes that bleed      into one another while I taste the salt      of sweat and summer   

in the slope of her neck. She bunches her shorts into her fist, baggy so her legs seem thinner, hiding the strength      in those calves. She is in college, a starting small-forward for a division II school. She knows that I am too young   

and too sure—she smiles       into me and reaches for the ball. Are you just another one of those guys      who believes that female ballers are no better than a junior high boys’ B team? She throws the ball into my chest, feel it thump       against my sternum. A hollow sound. I want to tell her       I don’t think that way. I want to use too big words like       respect and admiration, but I just say 

prove it. It’s dark and it’s summer. Humidity draws those baggy shorts in, sketches the shape       of her thighs when she drives left, stops, and then floats       up a step back jump shot that goes in and I realize       I am frustrated to be losing. I tell myself it has nothing to do with sex       or gender. But, this is basketball  

and no matter how high I can raise up or how fast or strong I may be,     it does not even this score. She wins and though I’ve lost so many times       I can’t bring myself to admit that      she’s just better than me. She laughs       at me—my frustration—draws in close. Says  

             you don’t have to apologize. That’s the press breaker—the realization        I will not. And even so, she keeps me         around, lets that ball drop one last time when she crosses her wrists     behind my neck, sways to that paradiddle roll.   

Kyle William McGinn is a union organizing, basketball coaching, Chihuahua owning poet whose poetry has appeared in Watershed Review, Stonecoast Review, and Typehouse, with forthcoming work in This Thing Called Poetry: An Anthology of Poems by Young Adults with Cancer from Finishing Line Press. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin - River Falls and holds an MFA from Hamline University. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.