THE PARADE

Driving, I was redirected
past crowded sidewalks, in a slurry of midday sleet.
I'd not seen or heard the news for days
having been inside with my son, who was now
in The Royal, in Surgical Specialties, the unit for burns.
His scald-wound had opened, was infected, inflamed,
in need of cleaning and closure.

The car park's digital board flashed red
like No Vacancy at a bleak motel without windows.
I drove on and found a white bunker
with signs reading Manager, Staff Only, Tow-Away Area.
In town, wet wind kept the crowds back and down.
The police were in form - the more senior of them
medalled and awkward and stern.
I asked a man for the drum.
He said cobber, cricketers, tickertape parade.
Having no camera and no desire
to watch a fat spinner and then a skipper
with a grin in a pin-striped blazer roll by, I stayed on
regardless -- a fool in the rain with an empty pusher.
Soon my son would be wheeled from theatre.
I looked up and down for a sign of the World
Cup winners. Somewhere near, a pipe band began
like big cats with emphysema.
Two cops on bikes appeared in the slick, followed
by the sporrans and stems, the bags and beards,
and behind them a man in a cut-down Porsche, waving under
a gold umbrella: a batsman, punter and failed brawler.
Where were the bowlers and keeper, the middle-order duffers,
the southpawed, Sandgroping drinks waiter?
When the tickertape fell, in the wake of The Player,
it might have been newspaper, torn and thrown badly.
A child let go of her red balloon. The cricketer watched it rise.
Approaching the hospital, the exhaust
fans worked the air like applause.

© Anthony Lawrence