The Glacier
Issue Four
Winter 2025

Golden Shovel with Lines and Variation from John Murillo’s Dream Fragments with a Shot Clock and Whistles in It

The white man sat under a willow tree, resting. It 
Takes him time now to rise, when the game starts 
He called nexts, ran with the Chinese kid with 
The good handle, the fat white guy who fouled on every play, an 
Odd hook shot that was unstoppable. Asphalt 
Were their only names you need to know. Except Sky 
That kid we all knew would become the blacktop 
Lord, only fourteen he was the King of the courts 
Shooting as far out as the buzzards 
Who smoked pipes perched 
By the fence, calling out the misses & the makes on 
Weekends, or weekdays when every 
Lunch hour or out of work Buster in that rusted 
Town they met when the rim 
Wasn’t rusted with rain, it 
Was a way we weaved & wanted always 
To ease the hours. When the ball was inbounded starts 
The man’s worn Adidas to run, dribble, pass here 
From the kid, named Wu Shan—I’m 
From Taipei man—& the man rose up bringing 
Something from deep in his lungs, the 
Loud & not lost longing that the ball 
Sprung from his body, up 
The orange globe went when it left 
His hands, & dropped clean through the chains, as he handed 
The Fat Man Jake, & Wu a glance & just 
As the other kid, the Lord of lightness like 
A cheetah sprinted down before you 
Could even see him flash—long passed the taught 
Days we’d show him moves—that was me, 
Not the kid named Javier (AKA Sky), I am the man cross 
The park, with a notebook, underneath the half 
Shade of a willow tree, resting as the court 
Fills with all the working men—Marvis with his stutter 
Arrives after a shift at the meat packing plant—the slowest step 
Ever as if he is driving to the hoop in reverse. 
The junkies & winos by the fence pivot 
As a gaggle of high school girls walk by & 
Every now & then one passes a bottle & pulls
From the bottle, passes it back. I point 
At Wu for nexts but he’s spent too—what you 
Got left man, & on the court some punk’s elbow 
Catches a chin & all hell breaks loose at 
The exact moment a cloud passes the 
Sun. Drops bruise my page, before a bucket 
Of rain causes us to scatter like ants & a boy 
I don’t know his name stays on the court & 
Calls out plays as he dribbles through puddles. Follow 
Me Dear Reader, this joy back through 
That rusted rim glazed with rain, always 
After my shift, to say game as if life, follow 
Our good taunts & our loud laughter, through
The long summers sequined with sweat. Got 
Nexts called out like a mantra, like an arrival to 
The unexpected, a sudden unseen spin, what get 
You got you got to get, & the bodies we wore up 
Till the sun shadowed us into silhouettes that gather 
At the cave’s entrance. My
Reader, I rub my cramped legs
On the grass & watch as the kid named Sky lifts
His body & in mid-air turns like a key to a lock.

Sean Thomas Dougherty’s most recent books are Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions, and the Dead are Everywhere Telling Us Things, winner of the Jacar Press Poetry Prize. His other awards include the James Hearst Prize from North American Review. He works as a long-term caregiver for folks with traumatic brain injuries along Lake Erie.

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