This month's offering is a poem by Andrew Motion, taken from issue 33 of The North.

CRICKET

Once upon a time
I’m

a boy dragged off to cricket,
pinned by heat in rickety deck-chair arms
and safe from harm

except for the undone button and yellow lips of cotton

there
at my mother’s breast where,

(tell her!) a glimpse of naked skin
draws in

the danger-
ous gaze of strangers,

and
on the other hand

more than a little concerned
having just discerned

my father, sprinting in from long on
blinded by sun

to snatch
an almost-impossible catch,

but really about to crash
(watch out!) into the equally pass-

ionate fellow haring round
from the shadier side of the ground.

Mine! They shout
when they’re about

to collide,
and in that second I wonder: which side

am I on?
Am I my father’s son

or my mother’s?
Whose

hurt matters most
and will be remembered best?

The open yellow dress, the ball
falling, and all

my life to come
balanced while I stayed dumb,

knowing, whichever I chose,
I was bound to lose.

The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.