wall ball 

dad & i look for tennis balls.
in the grass by the high school courts,  
the grass grows untamed
& spiraling-- brushes our ankles. 
we're looking for something to throw
hard & fast against the steep brick wall
of the school. it was a game we played
for years, riding our bikes 
down the hill to the school 
& laying them in the gravel parking lot. 
dad's bike had orange detailing 
& mine had blue. 
i forget when this begins or ends--
when we first went, got down on our knees
to look for tennis balls 
or when the last time was that we
threw the balls back to the grass
& left without a word. i can't remember
a single thing he said to me or 
that i said to him only the movements 
we made together in early fall 
when the leaves were just blushing,
only a few taking the trek down 
to become a part of the soil.
i wonder how long it takes
for a tennis ball to decompose so 
i search online, alone in my room
where there is no grass or dads 
or high schools. 450 years.
i imagine returning to our spot
for that long & picking up those
same tennis balls-- throwing them
until they collapsed into themselves
& after that just throwing the rind
like an already-devoured fruit. 
or, maybe we could have planted 
the tennis ball & see it grow into 
a tree of tennis balls 
all fresh & bright like we'd 
never known. there's something
to the action of throwing, the muscles
in the arm that want to, need to,
force objects through the air.
here's dad tossing the tired dull sphere
harder & harder & me watching,
living through his motion.