Football Boots

You called on Christmas Eve afternoon,

Carrying an unwrapped parcel,

A gift brought from memory lane:

David Dangerfield’s dad’s football boots,

Slightly battered but proud and dubbinned,

Though still smeared with sixty-year-old mud.

Brown, big toe caps, heavy size 8s,

Placed on the Christmas hearth to warm,

Like two twin ships in dry dock,

Recollecting their voyages

Once ploughed through the fields

Of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

There will be no scrapyard for you,

You will tell your old-time tales

In studded mute testimony,

Memories dribbling their Forest Green path

Through the logs, sparks and flames -

Climbing up the chimney

To greet the stars,

And be over the moon.