Tennis Balls by Christa Vander Wyst (Wisconsin, 23)

             —After Ada Limón

Freshman year gym class
I walked with Sophia

along the path
looping around the tennis courts.

I was wearing that blue tie-dyed t-shirt,
and maybe the shoes were blue too.

Suddenly, a group of boys
crossed our path. One of them said

Sophia had some tennis balls,
but I didn’t

realize he was talking
about our breasts
​
for perhaps a day, or a week,
but likely a month.

And then, all at once,
an understanding.

My chest was apparently       lacking.
What gave him the right to notice?

Later that year I learned
his dad and mine

had gone to high school together.
They were close friends.

I’m thinking now
about the company we keep,

about the people who raise us.
And I wonder

if my dad’s fourteen-year-old self
would’ve thought to imagine

the smile on his daughter’s face
when she pointed

to a certain tie-dyed top,
said      “that’s the one.”





Christa Vander Wyst is a poet and essayist based in Wisconsin. Her debut poetry chapbook, Meditations from My Childhood Bedroom, was published by the Garden Party Collective in August 2023. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter. ​