Dig

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For Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and her Malik, our Phife

& I immediately think of Cheryl, her Malik, his beloved
obsession with the team’s orange & blue, a sunset sky over

this city. The ruckus of these players’ sweet grit, the desire they
have to come in first. They rebound & strip like stickup

kids. They pound the paint as if their feet were wrapped in
Timbs, their lean torsos tattered & tapered in Coogi sweaters.

This is New York. Bodega filled with the aroma of a good
chopped cheese. Ambitions racing through our minds fast as

the 2 train during rush hour. I watch the reverie on TV, as
the Garden thrashes & quakes by the tectonic plate of our

steadfast fandom. Don’t get it twisted, capitalism is dying

& yet here I am rooting for boys bred to burn out their bodies
to make billionaires more billions. Was this what Rome felt like

toward the end? When the colosseums filled with gladiators
stirred the masses into a frenzy. How the people hungered for

food & freedom, but instead lost themselves in the carnal play
of sacrifice—reliable warriors, safer to believe in than

Caesar. No matter, I think Phife would’ve loved this team,
unflappable & carefree, anti-establishment, uncompromising.

What happens to the heart of a city when its people survive
on air; that space between the flick of the wrist & the swish

of a three-point buzzer beater? We fight for a win to fill
the ache of losing: Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Ayiti. We take

what we can, celebrate small victories until we win everything
we thought we never could—

As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game, Yesenia Montilla

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Everything they say and write is a lie,
about law and freedom, about equality
and justice, in the rubble of the bombs
we make and sell, in the silent cries
of limbless orphans, in the night
lit by white phosphorous and the
relentless sound of buzzing drones.

My Apologies, Ammiel Alcalay