Masquerade Ball
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Masquerade Ball
In The Lower Gym, we were coy,quick, and smooth as manta ray.Fridays after A Block, the unleash of a school belltaught us new ways to slingshot the body,drop our force-fields, play switchblade loose.Devin was automatic from three. Called his shotevery time. The Lower Gym was good for thatkind of wild magic. It loved to baptize black boysin salt, watch us run baselineto baseline until we shimmered.
Devin was all the envy I could stomach. 6′4″& beautiful. His elbow gifted me a deadtooth that year & I never forgave him. I was alwaysin the way, a dark humor without trying. Devin dropped 26on Hamden Hall that season & the crowd was an energystorm, casting gold at his feet. The brother was cold, crossso smooth the ball never touched the ground.
And where was I? In costume, of course.Willie the Wildcat, kicking the CougarShuffle come halftime.No one knew it was me insidethe dead animal’s face.Everyone loves a filthy clown.No one wants to hear him speak.We never spoke of the maskonce I put it away.Devin never said he was ashamed.We were a strange dialectic, king & jesterpitching javelins in an empty room. [End Page 310]
Graduation hit like a plague,spread me & Devin across the coastlinebefore we could learn the shape of a clean exit.I still run plays in my sleep,still hear dead potentialin the hardwood’s throat &wish I was braver back then,that I had ripped the beast’s headclean off. [End Page 311]
Joshua Bennett hails from Yonkers, New York. He is a third-year doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, a participant in the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and a teacher of 8th grade composition. His poetry has either been published or is forthcoming in Anti-, Tidal Basin Review, Drunken Boat, Storyscape, and Muzzle. He is also the founding editor of Kinfolks Quarterly.
