Someone said we’re most ourselves

            When things get rough

            Remembering the girls who gathered

            Round the edges of the pond

            In wintertime to watch,

            I wasn’t sure

            Behind the scarves were pretty mouths,

            We knew, and so invariably

            A fight broke out

            It must have done our souls

            A world of good

            Because the game was always

            Cleaner afterwards, and fast,

            Although by then 

            The girls had long been gone

            When darkness drove us

            To unlace our skates and

            Tramp back peaceably enough

            Towards home

            I felt a virtue in the cold night air

            And yearned already for an icy dawn,

            For unexpected spectators

            Who just might linger after a melee 

            To notice I was capable of

            Finer things