On Walking into a Basketball Gym

Why is the crude swell 
of nostalgia like 
cresting sun and falling darkness
kissing?

How can this sweetness
lather something so
twisted, conflicted, crazed
and tired?

Why will it never leave,
even after I have
resigned myself to a statistic 
of mediocrity?

Why do the athlete’s muscles
retain so much memory,
all of it and none of it 
touchable any longer?

How cruel, to teeter 
on the physical sphere,
to thrust realms together
within me

without hopes of reunion.

DANA LOTITO-JONES is an Upper School English teacher in New York City. She has published poetry in Ithaca Lit, The Legendary, and The Academy of American Poets college prize section. She is an aspiring novelist.