Theatre

by Anthony Lawrence

My father was home after an operation

to remove an aggressive cancer

called glioblastoma. He told the surgeon

and anaesthetist he was happy

to remain awake so he could entertain

theatre with his jokes, but in the end

he said, with a lop-sided grin, his offer

was ruefully declined. This was prior

to his stories of a previous life

as a Mindoro Dwarf buffalo, and after

he started missing buttons on his shirt

while dressing, and closing the door

repeatedly on his foot, getting into the car.

I like to count the scalpels in my stape,

he said. He'd started spoonerizing things.

At the butcher he asked for a lack of ram.

I've still no idea if his wordplay

was intentional, or if scarring on his brain

had gifted him the art of vowel-reversal.

We were watching cricket

on television, the sound turned down.

A bowler was at the end of his run,

scraping a line with his boot

the way some animals mark ground.

You've got less than a quarter of a second

to play a shot when this bloke bowls,

dad said. The camera panned around

the crowd and came to rest on a woman

applying sunscreen to her face.

What is this? A passion farade?

We watched the game in silence.

Swallows were skimming their own shadows

from the outfield grass.

A Mexican wave stalled then died

at the Members enclosure. A line of sunlight

shivered and pushed off from the fence.