Poem # 7 The Woman Warrior

The Woman Warrior

I play table tennis
I don't play ping pong
Ping pong players
can ping their pong elesewhere.

When I play with speed,style, and finesse
I a-chi-eve Zen concentration.
I only play "A" grade, or "A" reserve.

A hand-de-capped[sic] girl came to play.
"My name's Veronika", she said,
and sipped a rum and coke.

"It's a ruse" said the tournament organiser,
a swarthy east-european named Rudy.
"It's a conspiracy; a gambit; a sneaky ploy; a cunning trap.
The administration are testing me out
to see if I'm politically correct
.... but I'M not naive.
I see through their schemes.
I'll let her play
but why? oh why? did it have to be an un-armed woman.
Armless! Armless!
Why could it not be in a wheelchair!
or at least with one leg and two arms".

"Oh I don't know" I said " she could be the best un-armed
table tennis player in the world", and we both laughed.

In round two, I was the armless woman's opponent.

It was a slow agonising game,
like swallowing bad tasting medicine.

It was a game of suspended intention,
of compulsory tolerance.

She held the bat beneath the stump of her right arm, and her body swayed
extremely, like a tree thrashing violently in a strong wind.

When she gathered a ball from the floor
she flicked it with her foot
until it bounced high enough to catch in her mouth.

The with a violent sideways jerk of her head she hurled it in a long
parabolic arch across the net
with a fine silvery trail of saliva following it
like a comet's tail.

Each time she gathered the the ball it
took an excruciatingly long time.
The umpire droned the score like a mournful undertaker.

We did not wish to patronise her
but we did.
She won only one point
-- or should I say I lost one point.

The final ritual of the game was to shake hands.
What could I do?
I shook her short turnip like stump.
It was dry, wrinkled, and friendly.

I left the table acutely embarrassed.

I had lost.
Whatever the score, she would always be the winner.

She had no hands, but I was the one handicapped.

She was not embarrassed.
She was not dis-membered
from lifes' club.

Veronika was a powerful force of determination

eliminating all opponents.