Brian Duncan
Brian Duncan lives in Kendall Park, New Jersey with his wife, Margie, and two cats. He worked in a virology laboratory at Princeton University for many years and is now happily retired. He enjoys devoting his time to poetry, gardening, and hiking. He has poems out this year in ONE ART and Thimble, and in forthcoming issues of Whale Road Review, Passengers Journal, Elysium Review, and Santa Fe Review.
The Arc of the Ball
We shot hoops, my friend and I
all that winter after school
by the light of the flood over his garage.
Our fingertips cracked open like overwatered
cherry tomatoes in the cold.
Fifty years in I still remember the throb and blood
and the joy of hitting that jumper from the corner.
Now when I pass through my hometown I look
to see if the backboard is still there,
our only connection now,
with me off to college and my steady vanilla life,
he to the Marines, Vietnam, weirdness, vanishment.
I heard that he was a lineman out in California,
a solitary sort of job.
Who of us knew back then what we briefly had?
I wonder if he remembers too, that unforgiving steel rim,
that joy, that ache.
