William Matthews

Here you will find the Poem Foul Shots: A Clinic of poet William Matthews

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.