Closet Gronk

Prose Poem

Originally published in Soft Stir Issue 03: Stories of Collision –

Don’t tell anyone, okay? I just have to get this niggle off my chest. Alright, I confess—I love rugby league.

Not to play. I’m not crazy. But I watch every game. And all the highlights. And the panel shows where pundits sit around in studios, talking strategy and foul play, interspersed by gags that’d make even Dad cringe.

Some say the sport is toxic. On-field barbarism, off-field gronkism, performed by brutes thick in chest and head. To me, though, it’s kinesthetic poetry.

13 artistes wrestle like ancient Olympians in their short shorts and skin-tight jerseys...

... sweat glistening on shaven legs and chiselled biceps. I see sorcery in their spiral passes and torpedo bombs, craftsmanship in those silky hands and shifty show-and-gos. And the gristled voices of former players make marvel from movement, Channel 9’s commentary choir overlaid like clouds, as referee whistles pipe like heaven-sent flutes. The splendour transports me to a reverie where things are simpler, better, and anything is possible in that 80 minutes on the field.

Tonight, I’m hypnotised by the men’s State of Origin decider, the jewel in the crown of the NRL season—the global rugby league calendar, in fact. State vs. State, mate vs. mate, they say.

Yet on this night, something’s different.

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