AMIT PARMESSUR
The Medal in the Moon
The derby on television livens;
the dead defender inside her rustles.
She stares at the shadow box of medals;
life forced her to kick the ball away—not
fair. She feels like tackling her cat passing
by with the air of a vain striker. And
when the spectators applaud the stopper
who makes a goal-line clearance, her toes itch.
The rustling turns into a vibration.
How she used to challenge the boys, rising
into the sky like a flaming raindrop,
grinding her teeth to win the header, to
win the game. She was a star, a legend.
She is a mother now, a wife doing
keepie uppies with household chores; not fair.
She is now old, alive, young and finished,
the clearances and corners and missiles
sleeping in her calf. How she used to keep
wingers in her pocket. Now it swells with
broken dreams, with unpaid bills, with the smell
of sun-beaten grass, with the sound of studs
walking in the dressing room where the tap
drips.—By midnight, the vibration will have
turned into a roar, like the one you hear
when you nutmeg a mate in training, and
tempted by the moon hanging in the sky,
she will have brought her old cat down and earned
a rousing applause from the stadium
of her mind. By sunrise, she will have laced
her college shoes and gone to play somewhere.
Anywhere.
Amit Parmessur is a poet and tutor from Mauritius, Africa. His writing has appeared namely in WINK, The Rye Whiskey Review, Night Garden Journal, Ann Arbor Review and Ethos Literary Journal. He will always be late or absent from your party.