Gina Gwen Palacios, Gulf Pier, 2012 (Artist Website, Instagram)
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12”
I don’t play basketball anymore
And often I am sad
I tend to add this to the correlations
of why I miss basketball
On the court I didn’t have time to be sad
just to catch and shoot and dribble
and pass and guard and steal and win
My father would say there's no pouting in a good sport
take your lumps like a man
and this all to mean
why be sad when you can practice being a winner
I never learned what sadness was
until I lost my grandmother
and watched my father cry
over his ex-mother-in-law’s body
Now I am a faucet that refuses to shut
And it’s funny
the only splash I used to create was with my hands
and the ball and net
Now it is my body producing all of this moisture
And I don’t know how to be a good sad person
without a basketball to store my grief