Mark Pirie

poet - writer - editor - publisher

For Michael and Dylan Groom

I was in a summer camping ground, age 16,

spending hours juggling a ball. I had a day to wait

for a train. If other boys that summer had a girl,

I was the opposite: I had a ball.

I didn’t let the ball do the talking but it was my companion,

while she was missing. In the mornings, I juggled the ball

by my tent that I had pitched by myself.

In the afternoon, I did the same thinking of her.

juggling passed the time until I plucked up courage

to ring her, a beach friendship that summer, and her Dad

came and picked me up, drove me round Napier.

I stayed overnight in a room out the back of her place.

I still had my ball. But now I was near her.

I juggled the ball again. And caught my train.