Today I became King
of the Court w/out a diamond-
encrusted crown thrust upon
my sweaty head. Instead
my markings of royalty
were the t-shirt draping
my body like a robe soaked
in champagne & the pain
in my right knee — a sign
of a battle endured, my will
tested & bested by none
as the ball flew off my hands
as swift as an arrow toward
the heart of a target — my fingers
ringless yet feeling like gold.
Poet and editor Jacob Saenz was born in Chicago and raised in Cicero, Illinois. He earned a BA in creative writing from Columbia College in Chicago. His first collection of poetry, Throwing the Crown (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), was awarded the 2018 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize.
Saenz has been an editor at Columbia Poetry Review and an associate editor at RHINO. He works as an acquisitions assistant at the Columbia College library and has read his poetry at a number of Chicago venues. A CantoMundo fellow, he has also been the recipient of a Letras Latinas Residency Fellowship and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship.
