after Rebecca McClanahan
Like a magician’s assistant
entering a magic box,
my father’s watch
vanished inside a high school
gym locker while I worked
the lane, shooting hoops,
for a moment becoming
the ball players he admired,
before the times we got along
could be measured
in minutes. I interrogated
the open locks whose hooks
rose into shrugs. Everything
around me seemed to play
keep-away. Years later
and absence is still a bracelet
of flesh worn under
those replacements.
