Missing the Changing Room? `

Hot feet leaving their memory
Sweated on the cool tiles
White towels discarded
Steam from the showers
Percolating through
To where silence
And speech own the floor

It is here that boys become men
The place of the pubescent
Two-finger cough
To check something unknown
Of early pubes and armpit odour
Voices cracking, showers
Avoided in the uncertainty

Pre-match rituals
Are conceived here
One hangs his knotted tie
On the lower hook
Another sits, unfocussed
As hopes and fears
Take him, like a dream

Older now, the Ralgex owner
Takes his position
Gumshield in
The huddle, the shout
Louder than the opponents
The knee drives
The clatter of hooves on the floor

Finally, the locker room
Can relax, for nigh on an hour
‘Til the animated, injured
Swearing horde
Returns, jubilant or jaded
Weary, but rejuvenated
With a joke or a fierce captain

Finally, the survivors
Of the second-half return
To the steam, to the undressing
To the exaggerated stories
To the towels, the crisp shirt
To the bar, with a black eye
And blooded manhood