cuz he put up his finger to celebrate before the 3 even went in back in ’86 / during the three point contest / i guess he knew it was good / or i guess he knew he already won / like the white boys in bexley who we would find when there was no food in our kitchens / and play them for whatever money their parents could spare / knowing they couldn’t hang / cuz tony and mario just made varsity and we could take their money easy / and they would always get more / their 3 pointers would smack the backboard / the rim a trembling halo / and still their hands raised letting the late summer drink from an underserving fingertip / before they walked home on a street where no one had died / while we took twenty dollars to mcdonalds and got enough food to last the weekend / i know that if i sweat enough i will be fed / or something will be built / but not bear my name when it is finished / i tear open a hamburger and my fingertips are slick with grease / i hold them to the sky but no breeze comes / always the eager mouth / never the hand that feeds / when i score 20 against watterson / their student section calls me a nigger / a small price to pay / for my name in the newspaper / a picture of my face / three pages past the section where my grandmother checks for funerals / they say to have your name stripped and sewed back together by the same hands / is a kind of victory / where i’m from / none of the black boys celebrate / until the ball slides through the net / falling satisfied from its mouth / this is what waking up without a mother will do / the story about larry bird goes / he walked into a locker room that night and asked / which one of you is playing for second place? to a room full of black players / and no one made a sound