Yellow wins in ten syllables

 

Australia shrug South Africa out
of the World Cup; then Woodville-West Torrens
stop the Dogs five years deep in victory
to snare an unlikely cup. Their thick-set

ruckman wins the medal and, on stage, says:
“We’ll never fucking forget this.” And we
will never forget those words
, the TV
says, drier than salt in an arid plain.

Minutes later, he swaps a baseball cap
for a premiership medal.  A young kid,
maybe eight years old, places the medal
over the ruckman’s head. He puts the cap

on the kid’s head. It’s generational
change. Fucking is now in the language
of winning. Teachers have to modify
their manuals; moderators have to

evaluate each student’s ability
to understand the nuance of speech;
their capacity to understand
context and contemporary use.

Who sets these crazy rules? Which part of us
rules the tide? Teachers? Parents? The Mayor?
Sportsmen? I don’t think so. Language
is the unhappiest of accidents;

it’s more complicated than the genome;
it evolves faster than the superbugs;
it creates more trouble than it is worth.
Sport. Once nothing happened on Sundays.

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