Initiation

St Pancras Station, early Saturday,
clean and swept, airy as intention.

A fat man in a football shirt,
nylon, stripes of blue and white,
fit for a boat race, or a summer sky,
which stretches over cultivated belly
pregnant with beer and single mindedness.

If he were sliced as thin as pepperami
each slice would bear his team’s name
flourishing, gothic script, like a stick of rock.

A small boy, skinny and baby-blonde,
swings on the railings, upside down,
dressed in the same sky strip; but in the genes
a slowly incubating photocopy of his dad.

The tiger’s stripes are not just on his fur
But on the skin beneath.

Dad stops a passer-by and threateningly
menacing as a knife in a dark alley,
thrusts out a cheap disposable camera;
lines up beside his son, pats down his hair,
and grins with pride, a pork-pie smile.

A dream fulfilled – me and my boy -
his first match, great initiation
into the soaring hope and dark despair
it means to be a man.