by Beth Ann Mastromarino

I bounced my well-worn Spaldeen
next to me on the stoop.
The beat was an unintentional rhythm
for my father’s conversation.

He and my uncle were chatting away
in the sing-song of Sicily,
the soft sounds suspended in the air.

Twilight began to fold into night.
The streetlights came on.
The fluorescent glow dappled down through the trees,
a static sunlight.

“Hand it over,” my mom said,
reaching her hand back without looking.
“Why?” I asked.
“Just wait and see,” she replied.

I gave her the ball thinking
she was taking it away because she was annoyed by the noise.
To my surprise
she bounced it off the side of a beat-up van
parked out front.
To my greater surprise
she caught the ball before it sailed over our heads!

We played this game
all of us
until we could no longer see the ball bounce back.

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