Bounce Back

Late September and the sound comes through

the car window, muffled but true—

that basketball hitting asphalt, bouncing back,

the hollow thump, the crack,

mechanical and patient and slow.

I sat there for twenty minutes just to know

what it sounded like when nobody was around.

The ball went down. The ball came up.

It made its sound.

Fewer kids out now. The court is quiet.

But that one ball—that small riot

of noise—kept calling back,

kept hitting the black

asphalt like it had something to say.

I used to hear it from far away

and not think anything of it.

Now I think about how it persists,

how it keeps coming back,

how the sound tracks you down even when you leave.