Foul Shots: A Clinic

for Paul Levitt Be perpendicular to the basket,

toes avid for the line.

Already this description

is perilously abstract: the ball

and basket are round, the nailhead

centered in the centerplank

of the foul-circle is round,

and though the rumpled body

isn't round, it isn't

perpendicular. You have to draw

"an imaginary line," as the breezy

coaches say, "through your shoulders."

Here's how to cheat: remember

your collarbone. Now the instructions

grow spiritual -- deep breathing,

relax and concentrate both; aim

for the front of the rim but miss it

deliberately so the ball goes in.

Ignore this part of the clinic

and shoot 200 foul shots

every day. Teach yourself not to be

bored by any boring one of them.

You have to love to do this, and chances

are you don't; you'd love to be good

at it but not by a love that drives

you to shoot 200 foul shots

every day, and the lovingly unlaunched

foul shots we're talking about now --

the clinic having served to bring us

together -- circle eccentrically

in a sky of stolid orbits

as unlike as you and I are

from the arcs those foul shots

leave behind when they go in.