When is a poem one word? Even at 17 he was Baraka



on the court, Coltrane gold toned, a kind of running riff,



more than boy-child, man-child, he was one word like Prince.



How back in those drunken days when I still



ran in bars & played schoolyard ball



& wagered fives & tens, me & my colleague



the psych-prof drove across Eastern Ohio



just to see this kid from powerhouse St. Vincent,



grown out of rust-belt-bent-rims, tripped



with the hype & hope & hip hop



blaring from his headphones, all rubber soled



& grit as the city which birthed him.



We watched him rise that night scoring over 35,



drove back across the quiet cut cornfields



& small towns of Ohio, back to the places



where we slept knowing that Jesus had been reborn, black



& beautiful with a sweatband crown rimming his brow.



He was so much more than flipping burgers & fries,



more than 12-hour shifts at the steel plant in Cleveland.



More than the shut-down mill in Youngstown.



More than that kid selling meth in Ashtabula.



He was every kid, every street, every silo, he was white



& black & brown & migrant kids working farms.



He was the prince of stutter-step & pause. He was the new



King. We knew he was coming back the day after he left



his house in Bath Township. He never sold it.



Someone fed his fish for years. Perhaps our hope? Fuck Miami.



Leave Wade to wade through the Hurricane rain. LeBron is



remembering that woman washing the linoleum floor, that man



punching his punch card. He drives a Camaro, the cool kid



Ohio car driving through any Main Street. He is the toll-taker, &



he is the ticket out.



He keeps index cards documenting



his opponents’ moves. One leans forward before he drives.



One always swipes with his left hand. The details like a preacher



studying the gospel. He studies the game like a



mathematician conjugating equations, but when he moves he is a



choreography,



a conductor passing the ball like a baton. He is a burst of cinders



at the mill. He is a chorus of children calling his name.



The blistered hands of man stacking boxes



in Sandusky, the long wait for work in Lorain.



A sapling bends



& reaches in all directions



before it becomes a tree. A ball is a key to a lock.



A ball is the opposite of Glock.



America who sings your praises,



while tying the rope, everyone waiting for Caesar to fall,



back-stabbing media hype city betrayed



by white people with racist signs.



I watch the kids play ball



in the Heights, witness this they say. We will rise. I watched



LeBron arrive & leave, I walked, I gave up drinking



as he went off & won a ring. The children’s chorus calls out sing



brother, sing. Everything is black. Storm clouds gather



out on Lake Erie. But the old flower-hatted women



at the Baptist church are heading out praise cards,



registering teenagers to vote. To turn a few words into a sentence.



He is a glossary of jam, & yes he is corporate



chugging down green bubbly Sprite, running in Beats head



phones, he is Dunkin his donut, he is Nike, witness, ripped.



On a spring day in Akron a



chorus of children is chanting his name on the court by the



chain-link fence. He is forged steel, turning his skinny body into



muscle, years of nights lifting, chiseling, cutting, studying.



Watching the tape. To make a new kind of sentence. He is passing



out T-shirts, this long hot bloody summer he was returned



to the rusted rim along the big lake. He is stutter-step. He is



spinning wheel. He has a cool new hat. He is speaking of dead



black children. He is giving his time. To make the crowd



sway like wind through a field of corn.



Does LeBron think of dying?



Does the grape think of dying as it withers on the vine by



the lake? Or does it dream of the wine it will become?



He is wearing a shirt that says I Can’t Breathe.



They said he was arrogant. I said he was just Ohio.



He married his high school sweetheart. Bravado laid out



on the court. No back down, he is Biggie with a basketball inside



of a mic, no ballistics, just ballet. He is Miles Davis cool,



quietly cerebral, turning his back, tossing up



chalk like blue smoke, blue notes, blues. He is Akron,



Columbus, he is heart & Heat turned to lake effect blizzards,



freighters frozen in ice, looking for work & no money to eat.



He is Ashtabula & Toledo. He is carrying so many across the



river, up through Marietta.



The grapevines are ripe in Geneva.



He returns, Man-child, Man-strong, Man-smart, Man-



mountain, Mansfield to East Akron, minus into Man, or should we



say Mamma raised? Single mother fed, shy child, quiet child



who grew, who suffered & taught his body to sing, his



mother worked how many shifts, doing this, doing that,



never gave up for her son. He is third shift at the rubber



plant in winter, he is farm hands & auto parts piecework



& long nights the men at the bar, eyes on the television.



The lake tonight is black as newly laid asphalt.



There are no ellipses. He is turning paragraphs



into chapters. Long ago the hoop Gods made this deal



at the crossroads, Old Scratch is flipping the pages



of his program & waiting high in the stands—to belong to a



place most people would call



nowhere, to show the world how tough we truly are,



twelve-hour shifts at the Rubber plant in Akron. How he is, how



he is a part of this asphalt court we call Ohio, & how we



suffer, & how we shine.





