I scan the pitch        teeming with Englishmen

wearing flannels                with wickets and helmets.

 

Their aristocratic poise                 are for my expat’s eyes

a lazier form of baseball,              both noble and debased.

 

This is a gentleman’s game,        a settler’s sport:

their China cup        skin let their blue blood appear.

 

White-collared and starched,       they emerge from

a Forster novel        or Downton Abbey.

 

I scrutinise them with         a sardonic smile until

I realise my children           might play cricket one day,

 

not hurling     like their father

nor pelota               like me.

 

They will belong      to a third culture,

one which will escape me            like cricket’s rules.