Vol. 1, No. 4: Shammgod Unbound photo

A Poem in Honor of the 1994-1995 Mount Vernon Middle School Lion’s 8th Grade Basketball Team’s Favorite Song: Ini Kamoze’s “Here Comes the Hotstepper”Darren Demaree

Here’s the hard field-

notes from the last

boy that made the team

because he would dive

 

into the stands for

no real reason at all

& barely played, but wore

those team warmups

 

like a teen claimant

testifying for one girl’s

attention. Any girl

that wouldn’t make

 

fun of brown glasses

& the silk shirts I wore

to every dance we had.

You cannot know this

 

without me telling you,

but the bus trips

with my friend Paras

& with Ini Kamoze

 

blaring from the discman

is the closest I’ve come

to prayer. It filled me

with reasons

 

to carry such color.

I didn’t like anyone else

on that team, but I sang

with them all the time.

 

Regret is as useful

as a uniform

so tight that it tears

during a lay-up line.

 

Nah, na-na-na-nah

Na-na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na

Na-na-na-nah

Nah, na-na-na-nah.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of sixteen poetry collections, most recently a child walks in the dark, (Harbor Editions, December 2021). He is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry.  He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.