Let's Hoop Camp in the Forensics Lab

On the first day, a spell of yellow caution tape

and fake blood seeds the girl’s imaginations.

I hang a banner of light cotton pennants,

peel the fake footprint pattern off the floor.

The room is huge, perfect for the investigation

of movement and ecstatic dance. Death was here

once, ok, but we can rise above that bar.

My suitcase with the word “Happy”

spelled out in bright duct tape letters

shares space near a glass-fronted cabinet

that holds a dummy in a grey suit. He leans

as if he’s been clubbed in the head. He has, the girls

decide, because look, I’ll bet he was coming up

from the basement when she hit him with the brick.

We whirl all week, spin outside ourselves,

bond into the Hoop Unit. Girls, circle up, I say,

and they hoop to the center of the room, or I sing,

Hoop, Hoop! and they respond with a Hooray!

so voluminous the glass in the cabinets rattles.

Every day I’m witness to their methods

of friendship. The peels from shared oranges

curl in the corner on a paper plate. Decks of hoop

tricks decorated, circumferences calculated,

personal boundaries stretched, they twirl and laugh,

secure the scene.

I hide the film of storyboards set up by the CSI class

in a grainy drawer, close the lids on footprint foam.

Happiness sometimes has no key and so has to pick

the lock, or spend hours filing down metal

until she can spring herself and her partner, Joy,

who are the perfect match. They court Trouble

on occasion, but their work songs are so full,

sealed with the physical evidence of a life well-lived.