The boys are out
with their basketballs hugged close
or bounced high and caught.
The boys are out
with pants falling around their sneakers
hidden in careless folds.
They face the red stop light,
and instead go,
and the single car
cruising down the street slows.
The boys are out
chewing gum and staring,
watching and walking,
by the chain-linked used car lot
and the Hasidic market,
its doors lined with a sign
“Sushi Fresh Delectable Fish.”
It’s spring, the Catskills version,
the broken, brambled trees
exposed and held by frozen ground,
and melting mounds
of flattened grass in mud,
and tidepools of snow on the riverbanks.
The boys are out,
moving towards the cracked concrete court,
for hooped balls and possibilities.
