Goal Poem by Philip Gross

One flash and no looking back, that
moment, soundless,
through the plate-glass frontage
of the big-screen (Catch The Big Game

BIGGER!) bar: some

goal! has lifted them clean off their bar stools
and out of themselves,
their mouths wide, like one full-on
gust of wind; there may be words
and, somewhere, losers

(in some mirror-image bar) but here,
now, he's untouchable -
one lad in the dozen, a tad doughy
where his cheap kit top rides up, but hey,
a good half-metre skyward

as if hoisted by his high-flung fists -
Ye-e-es! - launched
like a toddler from a rough grip
under armpits, as if gravity had shrugged
and dad's glasspaper grin

could be always below, great laughter
like God's, without words
in any language, without rights or wrongs
or sides to fall back into. Why else
can we dream of flying,

unless we were made for this?