It wasn’t just because it happened in Cleveland
because I was watching from 70 miles away
and felt it happen too—maybe across the whole state
a moment of collective joy and elation coupled
with a single, supremely talented person’s complete frustration
collapsed, a singularity of negating forces, the rise
of one body and the decline of another. They met
upon this axis, the tangent curve undulating.
He was always chewing on the damn thing,
usually with a fucking infuriating grin, a puckered cheek, having
just drained a thirty-footer. But this was 2016.
Lebron was alive, only freezing his body after games,
DELLY was pounding coffees on the bench
and pestering the shit out of the Splash-brothers,
but here in game 6 it all came to a head. Ohio
could not be denied it’s rebirth. He hears the whistle
and doesn’t like the call, grabs the custom plastic
mold from between his teeth—whips it wild—
bouncing off the RTA line, towards the outer belt,
wine and gold stars bursting on the edge,
generational losers, on the news they said,
Well this has always been a football town.