Basketball in the Hutong

Spider-Man and SCHOOL RUINED ME team up.

Basketball in the Hutong

            October, at the end of National Day holiday

The flags are out. Our alleys
are blushing red, nationalism
hanging ripe, ready for harvest

as history, a lesson
in the sour and bitter left over
from a great power macerated.

There are wisps of white in the pale
blue above, the shade we always notice
on nice days. I watch three kids

throwing a small yellow ball
at an undersized rim fastened to a pole
and recall the “basketball” I played

when I was their age, on sweltering Beijing summers
no adult wanted any part of: we took jumpers
at a building with an electrical wire,

counting one point for every “shot”
that dropped between wire and wall.
The oldest kid in black is dribbling

and a younger one, in a Spider-Man getup,
says, See if you can drive on me,
I’ll count your steps.

A third kid wears a shirt that reads,
in English, SCHOOL RUINED ME.
They dart and squeal, make up their own rules.

Black shirt bounces the ball off his foot
and scampers after it, past red flags.
They pause to let a scooterist through.

He dribbles low, patting the ball
against the ground, then gathers
and hoists a deep shot. They all watch

as the ball sails
across the width of the hutong
with no chance. It caroms off a pole,

dunks onto a parked car.
SCHOOL RUINED ME cackles.
Who do you think you are, Dame Lillard?