That winter of my third-form year,
While the other boys played penny poker
Or listened to the latest Hendrix,
Or simply taunted Joe and Cyril,

I fell in with the school caretaker.
He was like me, from the country,
We seemed to speak the same language.
He knew the names of all the trees,

He knew them by their wizened leaves.
Books, too. He had gathered hundreds.
He loved their very smells, their shapes.
There was this book that I might like

That he would give me as a present.
How to Play Championship Tennis.
We would meet the next morning at break
In his little workshop.

The book lay squarely on the table.
I reached for it. But as I stooped
He leaned across and grabbed my pecker.
I ran out by the unkempt lawn

Through a fine, insinuating drizzle.
The net had long been taken down
Yet here were Joe and Cyril, knocking up;
Their fluent lobs, their deft volleys,

As if they had found some other level.