In the Playing Field

a poem

Andreas Kretschmer/Unsplash

I was careful
to slit the stalks near
the very end,
my baby nail trying not
to brutalise the slender stems,
tongue tip cornering
as another limp victim
is threaded through
to paradise — along my
unlucky string
of sacrifice,
where trophies plucked
from juicy grass
are doomed to dangle
on the hexagonal —
pale lashes crushed,
blind to their sun,
crumbling to dust
less than golden.
I was never put off
by this mummified end,
and even relished
the sting of green sap
earned from
my precision labour
between the first and second
refectory bell,
as I sat there cross-legged
in the playing field,
despoiling the day’s eye.

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