Football Results

As a boy
my father took silence over talk
he would sit
deep inside his glasses just to admire their stillness
whilst I tried picking myself
out from inside a twisted draft

cigarette smoke made curtains
over Saturday afternoon’s football results
his thin fingers rummaging
through that tawny beard
as if searching
for the luck he lost
to the wild blow of the journey

absently
he would walk me to school
our footsteps chipping away at the grey silence
with the whining wind
and that provocative rain
that marred his beloved glasses.

I can still hear those football results
I can still hear those Saturday afternoons’
when I held his hand so he could curse the wanting wind
to the deaf cause of rain.