Brendan O’Brien sends us a poem about a royal game of hoop.

In Response to a Rumor that the Fourth King of Bhutan (K4) Made Sixty-Five Three-Point Shots in a Single Basketball Game

Stroked by the royal palm, the jump shots arced
like slivers of silver moon and dropped sixty-five times
through a hoop cut from a plum basket. O K4, silent rainmaker,
I long to hear your people speak of that game!
Until I find myself in Bhutan, that living Eden,
among the rock jasmines and cypresses, I can only imagine—
the king backpedaling in crimson slippers,
his arm stretched towards the heavens like a goose neck,
the village girls crowding the sidelines, curtsying
to the hot hand, and, amidst the awe, a palace guard
turning to a maize farmer and offering an explanation,
in the holiest of whispers, of what it means to be “on fire.”

— Brendan O’Brien

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