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Recreation Time

P. R. Wride

Saturday, May 25th, 2002

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I’ve never really liked the game.
All that waiting to be picked
And standing in the rain
While the wind blew your hair
As incomprehensible girls skipped
And clapped away over there.
I wanted to run and talk with mates,
Pretending, all the while, to be someone else,
With cutout pictures from the Sundays
Sellotape protected in my pockets:
Identification games!

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Instead, we shuffled and waited to be chosen
By the usual captains of our teams
Who stood, leanly, before us:
hair so blond and pullet muscles
Sinewy visible beneath their shirts.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 And
The taught pulling of the self as the
Numbers went down and you were left!

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 But, one Summer when the skies were sheerest
Blue and the game went on without review,
I was chosen soon not late
And others clapped my back in welcome
To their side.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Early 1970s World Cup Time!

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 And, if my memory serves, Brasil
Had a keeper called Felix.
Felix as in cat, cat as in caught and held fast.
And, as I can clearly count, I had caught the
Bouncing ball and held it schoolkid tight.
So, in that way that playgrounds do, I became
Felix
And held the name all Summer long.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Not me.
I’ve never really liked the game.
Except once, on concrete, in my red zipper,
The ball flying,
The close safe close of hands.

© P.R.Wride

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/recreation-time/