LeBron James, I make a teacher’s salary and can’t afford an apartment.
LeBron James, will you find the dirty and shirtless on the road a home?
LeBron James, are you ghostly? The nightmare trots over the hills, LeBron.
The makers are making sugar, LeBron. Have you been to Cuba, LeBron?
The ocean oceans, LeBron. Will you buy me a brand new couch, LeBron?
It matters there are too many fast food joints in my neighborhood, LeBron.
Once, I heard a young man say he was hungry in class and didn’t have lunch,
LeBron. Will someone call the police, or will someone call LeBron Jmes.
Does a basketball resemble a fish, LeBron? Will you feed the masses?
I call on LeBron James to slam dunk a basketball over Donald T***p.
Oh snap, did LeBron just dunk a basketball over Donald T***p? Oh snap!
Help me figure out my new Samsung Galaxy Nine, LeBron James. It’s a war
out there, LeBron, but I love you because you always give it your all at practice.
Practice! Yes! It doesn’t rain in Southern California, LeBron. Will you miss
Cleveland, LeBron? Or whatever gym you were forced to lay your head on
while the flood grew outside and the helicopters circled over your beard.
Oh LeBron, your beard is biblical, does that mean you are a messiah?
My children have never heard of you, LeBron James. Mexican mothers
searching for their children with flashlights in the under-caves of humanity
have never heard of you either, LeBron. My spellcheck keeps changing your
name from LeBron to Hebron. My spellcheck underlines your name in red;
is that a sign, LeBron? I hear cop sirens blaring outside my window, LeBron,
are you in one of those black and whites, LeBron? I bet if you were in one
of those cruisers, you’d be careful with your gun, LeBron, you’d never feel
unaware or scared or nervous. You’d know what do to because you’ve
been in tight positions before: two points down, thirty seconds to go
in the fourth quarter. Is it the fourth quarter, LeBron? My butt aches from
sitting on the hard, wooden bleachers, LeBron. I am a chubby angel with
red wings watching you dribble across a court of clouds, LeBron. We anoint
you King James. The people anoint you King. They want you to save them!
Save them LeBron. Can a basketball be rolled out like the Magna Carta?
LeBron, will you tie up all the Republicans with ropes made of batwings?
The news pundits, men and women, light up when they utter your name.
LeBron. I do too. I can’t get enough of your encompassing smile, your height.
My god you’re tall, LeBron! Yesterday, I overheard two women comparing
how tall their husbands were. It was important that they compare heights.
I heard the mouth of a river opening. It was not the mouth of the Mississippi.
It was no river with a poem written about it. It was River LeBron. It opened
it’s mouth and in sailed the ship of race, class, hunger, sickness, and war.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.