The Old Second Division

The Old Second Division

The Old Second Division

Before the days of Flymos, to cut the sloping lawn
above the lake in the sixties state-of-the-art Business School
I held a rope supporting small Mr Howard
from Cowdenbeath (the old Scottish Second Division)
on a tight rein while he snipped the grass with shears.

He talked as he worked: for example about the time
when he was cycling along the Ring Road
at 3 a.m. one New Year’s Day and suddenly felt
not so much drunk as very, very tired
so he laid his bike down and slept on the hard shoulder.

In the evening sometimes I went round
to his well-kept house in the suburbs
where he smoked Capstan, gave me a can
of MacEwan’s Export, and played me Beethoven
on the stereo he bought after his wife died.