Looking Back

It was the summer

when Now and Laters

cost a nickel

and The Fantastic Four,

a buck.

When I met

Harriet Tubman

and the Harlem Globetrotters.

It was the hottest summer

after the coldest winter ever,

when a storm shattered

my home

into a million little pieces

and soaring above

the sorrow and grief

seemed impossible.

It was the summer of 1988,

when basketball gave me wings

and I had to learn

How to rebound

on the court.

And off.