Poem: ‘Memories of the Linen Room’
Craig Raine, 22 November 1979
‘Fetch me the handkerchief; my mind misgives …’
Othello (III, iv, 89)
In the dormitory, boys laced up their rugby boots like parcels,
knowing the mud outside would add that final touch of scaling wax.
It’s taken them twenty years to be delivered by an accident:
I see a pint of gritty mussels for sale and think of wet boots
on the changing-room floor. The...