Tennis Courts at Tufts University
BY TROY YGNACIO SORIANO I JULY 24, 2008

Medford pilgrimage down College Avenue, then up Professor's Row.
At the top of North Hill,
Do nothing fault lines shine white beneath my lazy feet,
Part the sky into
A thousand blue days.

The July sun, in this place, is a drunk bully
Taking a swing at me, who is also
Asking me to like him.
He describes my potential for being coached
Into a Grand Slam Enlightenment while
Bragging about all the blinding hard work it takes to exist.

There will be no tennis game, only a set of neat questions;
Can the body
Express more and more strain, and at the same time, more and more elegance?
Did I want a lesson in a hundred ways to appreciate frustrating?
Can the never familiar shot come at me,
Ninety miles an hour right to the center of me,
Just before I strut over and casually mention the flowers?

Being devastated and pathetic in public-
Again and again, in rapid succession, is educative, not to mention useful.
I can learn to fall in love with the most difficult things in life-
which will be, I notice, only the limits of time and space.

When I go to war with a friend,
I can wear an expression that is just as if I am being handed a cup of tea.
If I can have a nervous breakdown and still rebel against it with my body;
If I can run backwards, hard and fast with such an easy smile-
If I can propel forward aggressively with all my teeth showing-
Jump up high, just to kneel low.
The hustle of sports is what makes them so practical.
I will be doing this again, somewhere else
Before the end of the day.

The tennis court becomes
A kind of sea-colored dance floor
I attempt a Paso Doble on. Everything has just a bit of sparkle to it.
Now I will emerge, blinking and new.
Now I will come into the world like The Birth Of Venus, in tennis whites.
Oh yes, let me serve my partner perfectly.
Oh yes, let the spinning tennis ball
Be the Buddha
I look for
In the sky.

 

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