Overtime in the Alley

The TV is a dead eye, dark and cracked,

and the quiet in here is a physical weight.

I’m sitting on the edge of the thrift-store chair

listening to the radiator hiss like a threat.

Then it starts—the steady, rhythmic thud

from the court three blocks over, or maybe the lot.

It’s a heartbeat on asphalt, a lonely report

that carries through bricks and the garbage and rot.

Then the clank of the rim, a hollow, tin ring,

no mesh to soften the blow or the sound.

Just a kid in the dark, throwing a ball

at a hoop that is shaking and tied to the ground.