A spherical object—mid-air, is reason enough to come for your head:
another way to harm your gayest memories.
an opponent launches an attack,
& we crowd over the round omen, shelling body by rumpled body.
once impact meets fresh ground, the ball levitates.
whichever fist seizes it first stays dead or worse.
say, I put it nicely: the way skin wades past bullet-shaped hands,
till our loin reddens with demand.
say, the wind frustrates a killer pass,
we ram endlessly into each other till oxygen is spent.
& when the whistle yawns in high pitch,
we break free at impulse.
the ball throats skyward yet again
& gravity repeats a sharp pull at our loins—lawless lots:
Sammy & his neat burden of teenagers holding it down.
these round bunch of never-do-wells,
these ghastly wreck of knee & ankle snowballed into chaos on village soil:
this—our most cherished hazard.
surviving each die minute barely alive & intimate with dust,
I hunger for a rematch.
in truth, I dread injuries
yet, wish the next collision guts me open beyond repair,
leaving me still bound, motionless—as a corpse.
if nothing else, the silence holds ghosts.
& while we’re all a tangled mess of knee, muscle & displaced thighs,
your rehearsed hands meets me wet—
first, as a blessing: a tight-fisted plea between my groin,
close-range, as thighs slice through affection.
each impact dazed with reward.
we outperform nature.
one finger breeds two that breeds a whole bunch of hands, grappling at our innocence.
our tongues caught offside—shooting blank.
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Valerie Hunter (she/her) teaches high school English, and has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in publications including Edison Literary Review, Room, Other Voices, and Wizards in Space. You can find her on Instagram @somanystories_solittletime.