Undercover of the Night

 

Undercover of the Night

 

You woke - unexpected, that –

nightmares, always – like muskrats

interrupting the river’s steady flow

to build skyscapes of cone on cones –

blinking  blearily at the ceiling.

 

Here was Kristina crying, Monika’s embrace,

waving away that tangible trace

of sweatered breast you caressed

with her wink – two boys, indefatigable, following,

whipping with sticks of liquorice, swallowing

your streets in hunger.

 

It could be thunder,

reach for the clock, 1.30

and because the weather’s dirty

out there, the match’s been delayed -

not a ball’s been played –

undercover of the sheets you’re weighing it up

was it fate, was it luck?

 

Sneak to the office quietly, take your chair,

cross fingers, switch on, the crowd’s there

sucking in any remnants of thin air

bowling around The Azteca -

praying for all of us without a prayer.

 

For those about to rock -

thunderstruck pitch or some such nonesuch

they’ll lose, that’s the received hunch

and cheery pundits predict a trouncing –

Joe Hart, Mica Richards, Rooney:

They play the ball like that again,

at altitude, under heat - mainly falls in Spain,

you know, the rain -

good for early baths before catching planes.

 

Ah well, let’s get it on:

but they’re brilliantly, hopelessly wrong –

The first 20 where the game’s killed,

that taste Bellingham’s brace –

someone you’d not really rated

a sending off, two pens, final 20 tense catenaccio

and what’ll you do?

England 3, Mexico 2.

 

It’s 4. Snatch a couple before she rises,

you think, then softly, softly dream surprises

and later, lost in thought –

what, if anything, has this taught?

In her daytime you’re like to weather the scorn –

of guitars, of sport, of life abroad,

oh, how thick she lays it on; warns you well,

which is why you might never tell

of secrets spilling over with strange delights,

undercover of the night.