I take my nephew to a court I played on when I was his age. We talk about KD’s crossover, physics homework and first kisses as clouds begin to pressure the sun. Detroit is not the same anymore, white people run barefoot in the street with their dogs off leash in neighbourhoods that would have made corpses of them only a few years earlier. Coming to the corner where a boy was shot selling weed last month, I tell my nephew to stop so I can scout ahead. This area has been ‘rehabilitated’ but I don’t trust it. Oblivious, my nephew crosses the street, focused only on his dribble. Getting closer to the blacktop, he lobs me questions — Hey Unc, why did you move away? Uncle Tré, do you ever miss anything about being here? Do you ever think of coming back? 

We arrive at the court, and the clouds hiss rain to drive us away. We look at each other, shrug and start to play anyway. I’m winning, enjoying this time with my kin when clouds break and I see him: aloft, ball a hairsbreadth from his fingertips as he ascends, rain plasters him like confetti, the light casts him in brass, and I turn my head to weep for what I’ve lost. 

Between houses grass

sways. Bereaved and abandoned,

coyote pups howl.