THE TWELFTH MAN
On this beaming day the usual hordes come to scream their cheers at their favorite teams, each one urging on a particular player. I keep myself apart from the others;
my eyes are glued on the twelfth man, the replacement warming the bench. The best I can manage is a sour laugh out of the wrong side of my mouth.
The game goes its noisome way,
the fans ecstatic, downright Dionysian,
worshippers at the melee.
That twelfth man is separate too, waiting
for his call, the accident
that will send him into the game.
Then his shoulders will get slapped
and his name will ring out
from bleacher to bleacher.
At that moment he'll begin to exist,
a real player in his own right.
The chances of this happening
are, of course, almost nil.
Canon has it that the bond
between player and game
is a lifetime relationship.
This union, however, ends
with the final whistle.
The fragile spirit can shatter.
You too, Iftikhar Arif, are one of those, a spare man, only hoping for your occasion, the accident that will summon you.
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