Indoor Games

If you were ever to ask me which room I'd take
if I could choose any, at my old school, for a day
I'd take the key to the gym.
It would be a Sunday like today, the afternoon stained with rain
trying to wring itself clean.
I'd draw the curtains and unlock the store cupboard,
I'd sweep away the grit that never got swept
I'd drag out three crashmats
so I could leap over the vaulting box without knee-capping myself again.
I'd silence the laughter.
I'd lift medicine balls high over my head, juggle dumbbells
I'd climb to the top of the rope at last, smirking down sympathetically
at a mental picture of Simon Good-at-Sport, only half way up.

Then I'd rearrange everything to the side and set up the basketball hoop
to recreate the morning when all the other rows had finished
and all eyes were on me
as I bounced the orange ball
the length of the gym,
and got it in first time and Zoe Smith talked to me for the first time ever.
I'd take on the role of the games teacher to present myself with a trophy
of a basketball constantly going clean through a hoop.
Like a team captain with a time machine
I'd hand-pick favourite people from my past and present
and return them to the age of fifteen.

Instead of Zoe Smith in the short gym skirt
it would be you
and I'd have my prize and I'd have the key.

By David Keyworth