Читать книгу Repetition Nineteen - Mónica de la Torre - Страница 28

One ball, one pitch, one one players,

or one one after another, meaning eleven.

Hands off. One red card, one player down,

meaning ten, or zero after one.

Here an odd color theory applies:

a red made of two yellows.

Two teams, two goals. The mass

of spectators both present and viewing

remotely may or may not avoid such clear-

cut binaries while following

trinities: two teams running after a ball

so live it could be animate.

This leads to the occasional

tangle of legs.

The possible configurations of one one players

as a unit in the course of ninety minutes tends to

infinity, yet on average, per game, goals fall

between two and three.

In the end, all tournaments come down to four

teams vying for two slots, and an eventual return

to square one, since draws are ruled out.

Shootouts are the corrective. Skill succumbs

to guesswork, a stand-in for fate, to be met one-on-one,

per usual. If five penalty kicks don’t untie the score,

add another five. Then wonder whether

ardor leads to pain in equal amounts.