Basketballs in the Air

When we are winning our basketball games, encouraging each other fiercely, and Coach has nothing to chide us about,
we get to shoot around during halftime.

Someone gets all the balls out, tosses and rolls them to the rest of us,
and the air is streaked with the color rust
as we shoot.

The basketballs are flying high. Bouncing, curving, swishing.
There are sounds of shoes on court, balls through net, and warm chatter.
Everyone's shooting and everyone's catching everyone else's ball.

The basketballs are

fireworks

painting the room 
copper, cardinal, crimson.

Everyone's laughing, ducking, stealing, dribbling, jumping. Here we are, a team, in this moment.

Get too close to the basket and you'll get hit with sparks falling from our fireworks.