Robin Maunsell
The Games Room
Beyond the Assembly Hall, Nolly’s classroom for Classics -
five windowfuls of a cedar’s lower branches. Always
a stampede when the bell went - cues, triangles,
scoreboard markers sent travelling back to zero, the bagging
of tables, striptease of covers.
On my first day I wandered
around,
loose and lost, chanced on the place, learnt the game called
Indifference. Finally it seemed the Games Room was shut up for
good,
blinds pulled down, covers on, a generation of cobwebs allowed
to settle.
When, that night, you opened the door to the attic
we found ourselves scrabbling for bats. Soon the table was up
and a moth-eaten-looking net strung across and tied to a nail.
My wild shots were matched by a curious deftness in your return
of serve. Eventually I spotted a weakness in your backhand
and rammed home the advantage - a final-set game called
make your lip tremble and your face pucker up.
The attic’s
locked, well and truly, and barred and the terrible ping-pong table
thrown out, chopped up, burnt - spitting and screaming
to the last while I poke the ashes, loose and lost.
Page(s) 51
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