Handball in Brooklyn
I don’t know if it’s like this
Where you live, but here
The delis and bodegas
All have clear plastic bags
Behind their counters filled
With blue rubber spheres
Metro Ball, Sky Bounce
A handball for a buck —
One of the supreme joys
I find
Is squeezing one
From time to time — but
The handball wall that’s closest
To our place is taken up
A homeless camp’s established just
above the BQE — right there
And who needs all that poison air
The next one, down on Rodney’s alright
Despite the needles under benches
Or glinting on the asphalt
Like stars — opioids or sugar
Which one is the bigger historical harm
It’s hardly a contest
My right arm
Against my left
And which is best today
Against the wall