Post, Post

Post Match

After the roar and the grunt
of the thundering masses -
the players look small.

The silence is stark in the stalls; on the pitch;
in locker room showers where the cleaner is finished –
but surprised by the shirts.

They always looked small on the telly
but she thought they’d be larger up close.

Not tiny and flattened like pieces of litter
she thought they were flyers but then she saw collars
and paper ripped hems. Yes –

the woman thought players were usually Goliaths,
hulking great giants, leviathan fired
and muscled with rope.

She never thought they were all
Tiny Tom Thumb-kneed – with runner bean lungs’
and tops made from boxes of emptied out fags

She held one up between two palms,
tapped its little cardboard arms, thought:
who’d have known it …just a slip and all that fuss?

She traced the Victory on one’s chest,
Smoothed poor Park Road’s rained on crest,
kissed Hans Solo, tickled Real.

She hooked her post match boys in pockets,
slipped them in her jeans and jacket – The Football World’s
first woman gov’nor –

some days she let them play for cups.