Saturday, a priest amongst days.
These poor hands receive the descent of man,
My rightful share in an illegal age.
I am a writer, not a fighter,
Searching old stories hidden under rock,
Of how angels never made it underground,
Then embracing an eleven-o-clock break
To consider whiff-waff and dildrams.
Don’t ask me what I mean.
Instead, consider grandmother’s glass eye
And her three hours of secret history.
The nanny state made me. I intend to enjoy it.
His history is bullet-pointed on laminated paper and pinned to his bedroom door. I never knew, after the war, he was a goalkeeper for Somebody United, winning trophies and medals. There’s nothing to suggest this amongst his sparse belongings on his small desk; a fading photograph, some medication and wet-wipes, and a half-empty jar of Everton Mints. We sit on his bed and stare into space, and I notice he has goalkeepers’ hands, huge and agitated, as he runs them along the fraying fabric of his trousers. I wonder what game he is dreaming of. How would I know? I wasn’t around often enough to be part of his fading memories.