(i)
I’d like to leave hockey like that. In good style.
Someone read his lips and wrote it down.
Bedlam drowned the words themselves. An uproar
after the miracle, jubilation, the clatter of sticks flung down
on the dressing room floor like crutches in a pile,
hair-stuck tape and plaster peeled away.
Down to the raw, gap-toothed, wrapped in towels,
the shouts and candour of the showers, though each
of the Leafs had stopped to speak a word or two to Terry,
each taking in the open flap of undershirt, the old man’s bones
like a washboard. Where the devil does he find it?
The seeming fleshless legs without their pads.
(ii)
Half undressed he slumps
against the wall, no one says a word
about the cigarette in his hand. He’d drink a 7 UP
but can’t get up and wouldn’t ask. A fog billows out
of the showers. Bare feet flap the marshy floor.
Cautiously, the press guys squeeze between the massive flanks
and watch their backs—a snapping towel could tear your ear,
or worse, take the arse right out of your suit.
A little getting even masked as a joke.
A Leaf or two has slipped away and the older guys
are quieter now, more thoughtful, knotting ties,
one by one they sense a deepening silence in the room
and turn to look where Terry’s resting, panting, having
wrestled off his sodden shirt. Their eyes tell them
armload of plums, say peacock’s plumage.
Their fingers pause in their intricate task. Jesus, Ukey,
someone breaks the silence. The whole room
gapes at the hammered chest and belly. Easy to count
the darker nine or ten from Hull. They can’t even look
at the shoulder, but watch as he peels off the infamous underwear
and heads without a word toward the showers.
These were guys who’d paid their dues,
who’d seen it all. But this was a moment that got their attention,
seeing what they’d asked of him that night.
(iii)
Funny how a mirror only messed you up,
or even trying to think it through.
Just let your fingers tie the tie. Good way to play
the game, itself, they would have said in those days. Gingerly,
they bent to reach their shoes, feeling bumps and bruises
of their own. Maybe what the papers said was so,
maybe it wasn’t a game for old men.
But, Jesus, that just made the winning sweeter.
One to go against the Hawks, then the last great battle
of a Golden Age (they’d read). Few here had a philosophic bent,
but these were thoughtful times, the country taking its pulse
and all, a World’s Fair and a waking nation’s riots where
they’d meet an ancient enemy in Montreal.
The players timed it so they left the dressing room
alone. Their day might be nearly done, but they knew
things wouldn’t be so bitter if they walked away a winner.
Each risked a glance behind, then closed the door.
Sometimes you really didn’t like the guy.
He pissed you off, he wouldn’t talk. In warm-up,
stepped away from shots he didn’t want. But this was war
and all of that meant squat. You gave your goalie room.
They’d got their look at what he paid for what he did.
Besides, they knew they weren’t going
anywhere without him.