Sport 22: Autumn 1999
Johnny Crowning
Johnny Crowning
You crowned for a very long time, you know.
You paused poised at the threshold.
You stopped at the end of me.
Then I was cut and you tore out of me
like a sob. You were a bubble of air
bigger than my lungs, quite round.
I just pushed once and you surfaced in an instant.
Hauled out of the pool by the midwife
you were suddenly solid on me
like a little round rock above sea-level,
still slippery wet in mid-air
on my midriff.
Little prince, little toad.