We sit in the stands
with our steaming cups of hot chocolate.
I ask if he thinks we’ll win.
He says that we definitely won’t.
I drink it all in –
the little men in the distance,
running up and down on the greenest grass I’ve ever seen;
the voice booming over the loudspeakers;
the scent of pie and beer.
He reaches into his pocket
and hands me a toffee,
the kind I’m not allowed at home.
“Don’t tell your mum”, he says.
We lose.
And there it is – my first ever football match.
A bitter winter’s evening;
a two-nil defeat
and Grandpa’s hand, so warm in mine
as we walk across the windswept park.
Joshua Seigal
