Thomas 72 by Jihane Mossali. Image courtesy the Artist.
when I think about how many hours
I spent with a cough on my lips my lungs
the coal of my asthma, on the field, the pitch
a sort of arena in which I pushed myself
as a child to run as far and fast
over the earth as a horse, my chest
a knot, my breath a sort of ragged
fuse of smoke. How many miles
or days I must have spent in mud my boots
pinching my toes, the ball a rock. I
was the least healthy but also the one with most
to prove, with each run a sort of test
of my endurance. I smelt of mud
and even when my hand was broken
I was back playing in a sling. Our pitch
was a sort of song we spoke like a chant
or mantra. To us it was Camp Nou,
Wembley, the San Siro, the earth variously
snow and dust. This was break time
and Milan in 1990, West Germany
and Holland, or Basle in May
1979. I didn’t care if I was England
or Holland or Blackpool as long
as the sky was endless and the whistle
for lessons a kind of myth
that would play on our fears, a sound
half as dreadful as the orb of the ball striking
the post and ricocheting
into a field.
~Â Owen Vince
Owen Vince is a poet, music writer, and editor. He lives in Norwich and has been published in Magma, The Lampeter Review, and Carve, among others.
