Of Distraction and Perfectiom

A glass of milk
Sitting on an otherwise empty table
At noon
Right where it was
At six the night before is
A lot like a rain gutter
Hanging half off of a house
Sporting newer siding
Windows
Roof and
UnderNeath the snow
Extensive landscaping
Which is to say
I can't wait for spring and summer to come
So that after will be more readily accepted water and
Azaleas and daisies are more likely to be in bloom and
At center stage

chasing time

Time

Is more slippery

Than a six year old

Wearing socks

On a newly polished bamboo floor

packing snow

this snow doesn't pack
so I can't throw it away
nearly fast enough

Parenting is always in context

Jumping off a cliff never seems to make sense

So 

If you were to have walked in to my son's room this morning 

And

Seen my wife and I dressing a half awake six year old

While he flopped to and fro

Like the Ronald McDonald ballon 

On

A windy day 

In

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

I expect that you would have questioned our sanity

Even after you learned we were braving the hig winds

So that he could help his mom make coffee

But

I expect you would say the same about the man leaping off the cliff

If you did not see the stampeding herd of elephants

Radio Scraps

Maybe this thing just ain't meant for us
Yes
I do believe it's time for me to fly
Midnight you come pick me up
No headlights
But big ol' jet airliner
Don't carry me too far away
Just Take me into your loving arms
Because
The light in the window is a crack in the sky
And I'm
Standing still In a field of voices
And I
Believe in your song
On the real no lie
I don't know what it is but you're just my type
I need to be where you are
The lady then she covered me in roses

Spilt Milk

When I first spied it

It was already listing to the  starboard side

Having been surreptitiously slipped out of its berth in the icebox 

Through the kitchen and the dining room and

Almost out onto the open  table

Almost and

Then as almost slipped away

I saw it come crashing back to the ground

It's white prow

Hitting first and

Bleeding

Gushing

Leaking white in all directions and
Calling out to the fully aware, alert, and prepared

To streak across across the sand 

Life preserver in hand

To save lives and 

Assign responsibility

To sound the alarm and

Begin the rescue operation

With a reluctant and ineffectual awareness

Of the limits of feasible deniability and 

The inevitable cleanup to follow

seasonal plea

I don't want to see
my breath in March so Mother
Nature do something

Global Warming

You think
Your neighbor owns a
Shiny
New
Mercedes
Although it is hard to tell
Since you only see it
When you happen to drive by
As he is taking empty cardboard boxes
Across his meticulously plowed driveway
To the curb
It's pretty darn clear
He must be doing well
He must be happy
We must be entering the next ice age
Of course
You aren't writing the checks

Sinkholes

Sinkhole swallows two people on Seoul sidewalk
Swiftly
Succinctly
Temporarily
In much the same way As I am swallowed up by my children's
Soliloquies and
Tantrums
The only real difference is that my
Sinkhole experiences are
Seldom
Succinct

snuggling for warmth

stuffed inside a box
snake, turtle, frog, and stop sign
keeping out the cold

The Rising Son

Hiding somewhere between the opening of his bedroom door

At six forty five in the morning and 

The opening of his eyes and mouth
Almost simultaneously

Just short of six forty six in the morning
Is a transition
Of the sort that
Most folks never get to see
From a reality shrouded in mystery to
One about which there is little that is mysterious
Unless you count his consumption of carbs
A transition
That is no less momentous
Than Mr/ Roger's shoe change
No more apparent
Than  the annual life cycle of your average pine tree and
No easier to capture
Than the moment that toast goes from just right to charcoal briquette and
On most mornings I pay as much attention to it as I do to
The dust that builds up on the bottom lip of the picture frames around the house but
Even I dust and
Every so often
I am aware of the opportunity I have
To witness a sunrise
Every single day of the year

A Pinch of Saffron

There is a moment 

Hiding between the opening of his door

At six forty five in the morning and 

The opening of his eyes and mouth

Less than a minute further on

That feels a lot like 

Opening that nearly empty 

Yet newly purchased glass jar of saffron and

Adding a pinch To some carefully coalesced combination of

Oil

Vegetables

Spices and

Meat

With no promise of 

Anything yet to come

checking out at the grocery store with a new hire

He moved fast
Like a tornado
Strawberries flying across the belt and onto the floor
Like cars being hoisted off the road and into homes and businesses
Bags spinning in the wrong direction
Like people being forced to seek shelter in the attic and
Stretching the the breaking point
Like the folks forced to shelter in the wrong attic
Each item scanned at least ten times in the span of twenty second
The little red phone getting more use than 911 and me
Standing there
As if I was watching
"When tornados strike"
On my television
Just after midnight
Not moving very fast at all

thermostat

inside the house it's
sweatshirt weather outside it's
thirty two below

hungry for spring

Today is cold and clear and
Cluttered
Like a recently emptied meat locker
The snow piled everywhere
Browning in the air
Like day old avocados
Most of the trees doing their best turkey carcass impressions
And
I'm hungry
For spring

Give Me a Smile

He shrugs his shoulders and

Flashes a wry smile

Not the one where he sticks his tongue out and closes his eyes but

The one that is more reminiscent of 

A contented male lion 

Resting under an acacia tree 

It is even followed by a roar and
It always leaves me hoping
That the smile is what it seems to be and
That I don't end up getting more than I asked for and
I suppose
Now
It would be
The moment for me
To shrug my shoulders

Random

I just want 

The only thing that could make a difference 

The new version 

I'm not sure if you have a lot of people who are not in my head 

You know how much I love you too 

I love you too 

I don't think that it would mean the world today 

You know 

You know what you want me to be 

seasonal itch

by February

I'm wondering whether God

needs Head and Shoulders

Modern Menopause

They now say

Menopause 

Is

Ten to 

Fourteen years of

Hot flashes and 

Night sweats

And

Basil

Is being grown 

In storage containers

In Boston

So

Ladies

You can think about 

The origin of the pesto you had for dinner

At three in the morning

I had a dream

Hippos were gliding

Like nuclear submarines

Just below the surface

Not even a nostril or

A periscope

Showing

Just a ripple

An unlikely hint

Of the breadth of the problem

Lurking just below the surface

Of my mind

Smiles

In our house 

A French fry shaped like a smiley face

Inadvertently taking a swim in a glass of milk

Is like

That old joke about Italian snow tires

Told in a smokey bar

In New Jersey

You're guaranteed a smile

But

Once you get it

You may not want it

At least not in your house

winter creep

skis over his head

snow creeping into his pants

hot chocolate at home

Peas

Frozen peas are a life preserver 

In a sea of pasta and

Monterey Jack cheese

As long as 

He is willing and

Able

To grab hold

I can throw them out there at every meal

But 

Peas are green and

Slippery and

Don't go well with cheerios

If life gives you lemmings ...

I've never been hit in the head by a falling Kennedy half dollar and
Though my money disappears faster than the sun in Southeast Michigan
It has yet to attempt harakiri or
Seppuku
Mass or otherwise or
Even
To give itself to the needy owing to overpopulation but
Misconception or not
It does seem to go to the very same place as
Everyone else's

the wish of a new generation

May
Indecisive
Always grow up to be
Eclectic

Hold On

We've been told to

Let it go and

Watch the world erupt into song and

Adventure leap out of the hillsides

It's the promise of Heidi 

On crack but

A little lower

There's an older promise

Connected to a simpler and

Sometimes more courageous act

Too often confused with the submissive wife and

Neville Chamberlin

Not that anyone remembers him or

That when playgrounds were blessed with metal slides and

Teeter totters

We did not ride the merry go round 

(Also called the roundabout to avoid confusion and visions of painted horses)

Alone and
That while we loved letting go 

It wasn't the hardest part

Did Navajo children go away to college
I don't
Remember the first time I held her hand or
Forget
Ever
That taking it in mine and
Letting it go
Are as connected as we are
In winter
Summer and
Probably even in the Swiss alps
I suppose that courage
Like the illegality of defecation
And most everything else is
Situational

Family Recipes

If I had been 

Suffocated

Along with head lice

In a plastic bag full of mayonnaise

I would 

Not be able to bake

My great grandmother's molasses cookies for my children and

Offer each

A cookie and

A glass of milk

Before they slip off to bed

To sleep

To dream

To wake even

If I wanted to

Brian Williams

Memory
Is a picnic and
We are ants
Brian Williams might walk away with a bit of wonder bread
You may grab a crumb from a pumpkin cheesecake
I might carry off a piece of sushi grade ahi tuna and
Find myself wedged in the tread of a pair of vintage Air Jordan's before
But at the end of the day
Along with the season finale of the Biggest Loser
It's all my memory
Your memory and
Brian Williams too

this is thirty seconds

maybe nothing good is possible
in thirty seconds
just half a minute
maybe
just
this

still snowing

forty percent chance

better odds than on Sunday

snow still coming down

winter status quo

snow is still falling

windshield wiper fluid

is still hanging in

Better In Video

Who needs home videos

Read a book

Watch the movie 

More than once and

By the third or fourth time

It's just like you're reliving your own life

Only with prettier people and

Better special effects

Who needs to video tape their own life

Who needs their own life

February

February

Now playing

In a limited run

On and

Off 

Broadway 

Catch it before time

Marches on

growing assymetry

assymetrical for sure
more hair on her right
(my left)
eye more open over there too
ear only showing on her left
(my right)
and the whole thing
floating up there in mottled dark blue
bounded on all sides with silver
is
out of touch and
very much the equivalent of the
lesser hair or the
missing ear
stuck on the wrong side of assumetrical
more and more
Every single day

Snowflake

Falling
One at a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At so many times
That you forget the one

Ever After Begins Somewhere

After

I lurch to my feet

Bones clicking and

Joints sticking

Cat howling expectantly in the hallway

Clock ticking away ceaselessly in my mind

Which has already raced right past lunchtime and back

Twice

After the world has returned to focus sufficiently

That I can identify a pair of pants almost warm enough

To allow me to brave the unheated basement

After each of those forty or so seconds have passed and

Before I leave the room

I always look back
To the tangle of pillows and sheets
For an elbow or
A lock of hair

Even now

After almost fifteen years

That is still how my day has to start

After
All

Taking in the Moonlight

I wonder

If 

On that 

Cold

Dark and 

Snowy 

Evening when my daughter

Pants and underwear around her ankles

Presented her bottom and 

Pulled her cheeks back

A half foot from the cat's face

It appreciated

The timing or

The irony

More than I did

Forty One Year Old Stay At Home Dad

There is awake 

There is asleep

There is whatever you call the 

Five or ten minutes

A six year old can spend

Still on the bed

Five minutes after verbally acknowledging both

Morning and

Dad

With one leg hanging out and

Only the top of his head peeking out from under the covers

Muttering 

In the dark

In an increasingly whiny tone and 

Then

If you extrapolate that over the course of an entire day

You have 

The state where I now dwell

electric stasis

cat stretched out on lap
me scared to dislodge wedgies
Stuck in fear of static

Of Families and Noisy Dirty Laundry

I heard the breathing and

Talked out loud about my astonishment at discovering that mom's shirts could breathe

While hanging in the closet

Then 

After a fifteen to twenty second pause to allow 

Maximum happiness for all involved

I pushed apart the shirts to find that

Nothing

Was still breathing

All through the closet

Everywhere I went

Everywhere I looked

Even near the hamper

The big

Newly emptied 

Wicker hamper

In front of which I finally paused

Long enough to appreciate

The trials
Tribulations and
Blessings

Involved with
having a family and
A life
That is so busy and
So young
That I can
Still
Hear my dirty laundry

Of Time and Props

I want to bring home an antique pie safe 

A butter churn

A spinning wheel and

A cider press

For starters

So I can look at them all

While I warm up food in the microwave or 

Create stiff peaks out of egg whites with power tools

At least theoretically

I could close my eyes and

Even step away

To do some laying on of hands

Working a deception on time or 

Myself or 

The egg whites

Kind of like a drive through wild woods and 

Dormant farm land

On a dirt road 

In my 2006 Mazda 5

With a chamber pot in the back

in and out and ...

Every night

Regardless of weather or season

I retreat 

Inviting in the darkness

One room at a time

Never knowing for sure

That it will 

Leave

Aging Perspective

My son's milk is taunting me
From its smudgy glass
It knows
That I don't want to get up until
I am ready to go to bed and
We both know
That by the time I get up
I will have forgotten all about it
So
Underneath its slowly congealing surface
It laughs at me
A one time
Would be
Statesman
Secret agent and
Hero
Who now
Can't act fast enough to stop yogurt from happening

The Best Poem

The best poem
Is the one that falls down upon you
When you are in the shower or
About to fall asleep or
Herding the kids out of the door and off to school
Five minutes late and
Which
You don't write down before
It slips past your fingers and
Runs away
Somewhere beneath your feet

Hope Alley

By the time the ten pin finished with its five second weeble wobble impersonation and
Did actually fall down
I had talked myself into believing that what I had just witnessed and
More
Was possible
For
If an eight year old girl and
An old pink bowling ball
Can find their way
From side to side
Bumper to bumper
Down the lane
At a pace that tests one's patience and
Still find all of the pins
Well
Then
Maybe
After forty years
There is still
Hope

Up and Out of a Long Day

In the basement
It is one in the morning
The space heater is off
My paid work is done and
I have only a poem to write
Before I can escape the encroaching cold and
Make my way to bed
Up and
Out
Of the basement

context

thirty degrees is
pracically shorts weather
after the new year

Olives, Fruit or Vegetable

This morning

It appears as if

A taco exploded in our dining room

The blast field of cheese and taco shell bits extending into the living room
Olive slices strewn about
Like body parts
I hope they weren't muslim olives
Because we'd be pushing it to get the funeral over in time
Those olives may well still be there tomorrow
Afterall
The kids still have to eat tonight
Besides
They were black olives
And I'm not well versed in
Human
Animal
Fruit or
Vegetable
Numerology
I wonder whether soldiers who survive battle ever sit among the corpses and
Haggle over whether the fallen were were enemies or friends
Heroes or
Not
I wouldn't want to do that
It's a mess that isn't so easy to understand or
Clean up
Even if you are so inclined and
To be honest
This morning
I'm not and
This morning
I'm not even  sure whether olives are
Fruit or
Vegetable

the inevitability of winter

there's always a chance

that it will be your next step

will break through the ice

Walls

In my mind
The woods
Where the two paths diverge
Is the one surrounding the tennis courts
Just up the hill from my house
Just the other side of the golf course
Just a little bit past the club house
Woods on three sides
Littered with tennis balls and
Paths diverging everywhere
Into backyards and
Parks
Everywhere
In a one mile radius
Just
In my life
In my mind

Clouds

Clouds are a canvas

A ceiling

A comfort 

A barrier

A threat and

A lot like people

Love them

Hate them

Transfigure them in your mind into bunnies and busses

They aren't going anywhere

Check Out Anomalies

Black high heel boots

Black leggings

Black sweater

Black beanie

Black purse

Three gallon tub of rainbow sherbert

He's Six

He's six

He was just arguing with me and his mother about whether or not he was going to eat half a strawberry

And now

He's lying on  me

On the couch

Cuddling

At his request

In a moment he'll be up again and fighting with his sister over whether the lights can be turned off while they brush their teeth

Then he'll be

Falling into sleep

While I sing

Falling

Out of reach

Again

Until morning comes

And then

He can stare at the wall and spin in space while I run around turning off lights, gathering shoes and coats, and barking out commands 

Forgetting

Just for a moment

His smile

The touch of his little hand on mine

And that 

Even when he tells me he has both bags in the back seat but it turns out he only had one and we have to go back home to get the other

A hug or a cuddle might 

Serve to remind me

That he'll soon be out of reach

And now

He's six

Bigger Questions

If
God says
To kill
Why
Do you listen

Authorship

My words
Or yours
Or
Shakespeare's
Or
God's
Or
The big bang's
Or
Does it matter
Isn't possession nine tenths of the law
Of
Any law
Oh
It is true that I might not be the first
Or
The last
But
I am planting my flag
In the middle of this word
this sentence
this poem
this mess
Claiming
That it will be someone else's to clean up
But it;s mine now and
If it;s not
Then
I
Myself
Am just a myth of someone else's creation and
In that case
It is their will
That I assert my own
That I claim my voice
So
We all should agree
That these
And all the rest
Are my words
And
Or
So I believe

Radio Mash-Up Two: Three Words Have Two Meanings

Three words have two meanings
The trouble is knowing which is which
I mean, suppose I'm just a photograph on your floor
It makes sense
So, then would you let me see beneath your beautiful
I'm bound to stumble and fall
Trust me
And I'm not afraid to fall
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall
How can I be afraid to fall
If right before I drown you resuscitate me and
I know that you will love me all the same
Of course that's the big if
Or one of them
For the poet in the overcoat looking for a suntan
I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly
Really I just hope that you spend your days and they all add up

That is the only real meaning
For those three words
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah 

radio mash-up one

You are my inspiration and 

Love is the reason why

We can live beside the ocean

You can't always get what you want but

I'll be alright

Playing my music in the sun

I know I'm not the only one

I will wait for you because

You've put these questions in my mind

Mailing In Moments

I did not leave enough Rice Chex in the box for a full bowl
Even for a child
I could have eaten a bit and then poured the rest in
I could have thrown out the remainder
I could have done a lot of things other than
Leave that pittance sitting there in the box
Neatly closed and
Sitting on the shelf
With the other cereal boxes
Another moment
For another time

the age of the blizzard

give me a blizzard

snow flurries are for the young

who have time to wait

Boo Ya

Reading on ESPN.com

About the death of Stuart Scott

Has made me wonder

If 

Only the sunniest days 

Get to have

Yellow

Orange and

Pink

Spread liberally across the horizon

When they come to an end

Or whether

The memory of a beautiful day

Follows in the wake of its exit and

Exultation 

New Years Resolution

a resolution

should start and end in the cold

holding its own hands

Of memory and will

Memory creates the cracks in the foundation

But you recognize them as a given

Before you ever choose to pour the water in 

Pour the water in yourself and

Wait for it to freeze

Knowing full well

You don't live in Mexico

But apparently not knowing

That people can move and

Cracks can be filled

Blast It

Lightsabers might be

An elegant weapon for a more civilized age

But I'm not sure six

Is ever a civilized age

And it is highly unlikely that anything wielded by a six year old can be 

Elegant

Charming ... perhaps

Entertaining ... absolutely

But I'm not buying elegant

Of course

I did buy a lightsaber

For a six year old

With Visions of battles in a dark basement in my mind

As I typed in my credit card information and

Verified my shipping address

While wearing sweatpants and a hoodie

So 

Maybe I should have bought a blaster

New Year

One day ends

And

Another begins

And

Ends

And 

Begins

And ...

Pop Song Wisdom

Baby you could swing by my room around ten

Cinderellas gone to New York City and 

I didn't know where to turn to

This is my homewtown and

I'm just sitting out here watching airoplanes take off and fly

Waste it if you want

It's the bond that we tie up and over and under and

I only want to be with you

how far this all goes

how far this goes

today

every day

is hard to see

hear

smell

touch

besides

tomorrow I'll be gone

I suppose I could come to jesus in prayer and he would take it all away and

bring the good news 

which is

It will all get taken away 

with or without Jesus

no matter 

how far it goes

the smell of freedom these days

when chestnuts are roasting on an open fire

how open does the fire

have to be

to be able to

breath life

into

the moment

and 

how open and 

free 

do i have to be

in ordet to breathe

the smell of chestnuts and 

celebration

into 

my lungs and

my life

the white emerges

sprinkles of the white
laced across oceans of green
garland foreshadow

Paper Context

When you need a tissue
Tears
Snot or
Something else
I don't suppose it matters
To the
Tissue

Presentation Matters

It's not the

Quantity or

Quality

Of your words that matter

It's just 

How

They are

Arranged

A Long Winter

Empty lives are not always like empty trees

Buds hidden under a dusting of snow

Even if they seem that way

Even if the snow does conceal leaves

Strewn about in every direction

Trees seldom stand alone and

Once a leaf falls

Who can say where it fell from

Who wants to admit that they know the difference

Between and empty tree and

The alternative

line of sight

when the pretty leaves

go, the view improves ... wonder

what your'e looking at

life seems long

the leaves fall off the
trees and grow back every
year, until they don't

Where to start?

America is a big house

A big dusty house 

Garbage overflowing in all the cans

The sink full of dishes

Spider webs in the corners

Streaks on the wonderful s

Clothing lying about

And you 

And me

Standing in the middle

Wondering where we should start

Pretending the roof isn't leaking and the foundation isn't cracked

all are welcomed me ... but Ebola scares me

it is cold out so

drink of his blood and pass the

cup but not to him

there's stupid and then there's ...

a broken sandal

a sore ankle makes less sense

in two feet of snow

what is in a month

roofs littered with leaves

on February thirty

first is scarier

thanks to us they'll last a million years

it's just a bit too

cold to roll down windows so

bugs are safe inside

still fall day

the orange leaves betray

a slight movement in the wind

the clouds hunker down

life is short

life  is nothing but

autumnal haiku, false hope

... fancy packaging

anything is possible

you'll never sleep well

If you think leaves might just

jump bAckup on trees

Private Parts

Apple core hidden in a napkin
Banana peel obscured behind my laptop computer
And a good thing too
If someone has just tapped into my laptop's built in camera to spy on me
They won't have any idea what I eat
When I'm using my computer
Naked

autumn, pooh, and you

when a leaf falls here

does one also fall 

in the hundred acre wood

wet color

the color of leaves 

through scattered beads of water

doesn't change at all

Never Letting Go

At age forty one
Nothing anymore is like standing in the back of a pickup truck
Hands in the air
As it passes out of a tunnel and onto a bridge
At night
The air clear
And punctured with a song that moves you
The very first time you hear it
And
Unfortunately
Outside of a movie script
The same is usually true of
Fifteen
Seventeen
Twenty one and
Thirty nine

Addicted

He never did heroine

Or dated one 

But

He told me he didn't need to

Because

At fifteen years old

Watching a movie with friends

She grabbed his hand underneath the pillow

Where no one could see

And held it

Fleeting

The second time I looked up

The face I saw in the clouds

Was still there

And

That was the moment I should have savored

Instead

Distracted by a fly passing in one open car window and out the other

I looked away

And

Now

I am staring at the clouds

Hoping for a face to emerge 

Somewhere in between 

The pistol and the mouse

Made in China

What isn't

What wasn't

Nothing

Everything

You can get for a dollar or

Two or

Three and 

Later 

A yen or 

Two  

Or

San

Breathe In Breathe Out

Bee flies in open

Window with the cool fall breeze

Go ahead ... exhale

The Fall

A perfect blue sky 

Hints of red and orange abound

Ebola is here

Where Did You Fall?

Raindrops only have delusions of grandeur

After they fall from the sky

When they fall on

Streams 

Rivers 

Lakes

Oceans

Even puddles

The ones that fall onto concrete

Can't afford to be delusional

Two sides to a blade of grass

Joy is like grass

Cut it down

Rip it out

Cover it in concrete

If you must

But know

There will always be a little bit somewhere

If you change your mind

Separating

Apparently

General Sherman is still despised in some parts of the south

Meanwhile 

In the north people still appreciate his tank

Which makes me wonder

Why a man and a woman getting a divorce

Bother arguing with one another

Patriotic

I only love my mother

Because she is perfect

She looks just like she did when she was twenty

She never yells

She spells every word correctly when she writes and types

She has never burned rice

She has never been sick or sad

He hair never out of place

Her house always spotless

Her people free

Happy

Faithful

Industrious

Law abiding

Patriotic

Blinded by love

Rinse and Repeat

Wake

Dress 

Feed 

Maybe eat

Drop off

Grade papers

Paint walls

Wash clothes

Wash dishes

Clean

Pause

Pick up 

Homework

Play

Use the bathroom

Cook

Eat

Clean

Put to bed

Teach some more

Write a poem

Go to sleep

Sleep

Rinse

Repeat

Interpreting our low ranking in infant mortality

Beets can make your urine red

So

Before you panic and

Drink a lot of water on your way out the door

To wait in your car in line 

To pick up your son from school

For fifty minutes

Think about what you had for dinner

You may have had 

Pasta

Brussel Sprouts and 

Fresh bread

seasons

the older I get
the less I feel like a bottle of wine
any bottle of wine
and the more I look like a leaf
any leaf
that is more than a few days removed from the tree
and the outside
sitting on the kitchen counter
still colorful
but ...
waiting

warm fall day

sweat and sunburn framed

by yellow, orange and green leaves

in the waning light

Moment

When you yell at her for forgetting her homework
You hope that the moment is just a moment
Set aside
Contained
When  she says you are the best daddy ever
You
Want
It
To
Contaminate
Every
Part
Of
Your
Life
Forward
And
Backward
Of
The
Moment
Itself

then and NOW

She is but a link in the chain

When 

Standing under the basketball hoop

Ball in hand

She turns back towards me and says

I could dribble better

If this

Dress 

Wasn't in my way