Poetry
by Paul Hostovsky
To
the Hoop
My daughter holds the record for assists.
She's great at looking like she's going to shoot
then passing to where she wasn't looking-two
points! Hers as much as anyone's, she insists.
And she's right. Some will be leaders and
some
will be followers, and some will be the assistants.
My daughter is the leading assistant on her team.
But I wish she would shoot once in a while.
Sometimes you get really good at something
by doing it to the exclusion of everything else.
Playing the oboe, drawing only horses, writing
sonnets exclusively. Then when an opportunity
to do something truly great presents itself
like a clear shot in slow mo, like an ode
to the hoop, like a bird to the hoop, like a whole
flute section rising up all at once to the hoop-
you don't take it, because you don't see
it,
because you're looking to be great someplace else.
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Backstops
The backstops are all running away,
the ones our grandfathers built,
the ones we climbed when we were small,
sitting on top of their huge overhangs
and looking out over
the baseball fields of life
like small birds riding the old and rusty
rhinoceroses which seemed not to move at all-
that's how slow they were moving-
munching our lunches and watching
the game. And learning the game. And who
would have thought the backstops would ever
not be there, to stand behind us and our
children and our children's children when
they stepped up to the plate and took
their turn. But the backstops are flying away now
over left field and right, flying out of the park,
out of town, out of the country. And what
can the umpires say or do but remove their masks
and squint in disbelief like the rest of us
at the backstops going, going, gone away.
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