Courtship
Football fizzled out, but you emailed to say
you missed running round chasing a ball –
would I like to play tennis? I’m useless at tennis,
but missed running round chasing balls,
or rather, chasing the same ball as you,
which was what I hoped you meant.
We set a date. It rained. And again the next week.
I wondered if someone who enjoyed
chasing balls might also fancy a drink.
You phoned, inviting me for a drink.
We chatted about ex-boyfriends, the Indigo Girls,
wearing suits to family weddings. The list
of things you liked grew longer, more hopeful.
We made another date, vowing to play
come rain or shine. The sun shone
on our first set, and I chased missed balls,
until fat drops spattered the court and we ran
for the brick shelter where we’d first met.
A month later, in bed, you said it was my arms
that did it – the way I’d hugged myself warm
just where you wanted to stroke, and I revealed
I’d wished my hands were yours.
The thing is, nothing happened that day,
in the shelter, in the summer storm,
but that was the last time we ever stood, no net
between us, wanting and not touching,
and it was enough, lovely E, it was enough.
Alison Binney is a poet and English teacher from Cambridge, UK. Her debut pamphlet, ‘Other Women’s Kitchens’, won the Mslexia Pamphlet Competition and was published by Seren Books in 2021.