Six sets to six; the tennis pros swing on
With neither willing to accept defeat.
They're so well-matched, we hoped it would go long,
Now ev'ry fan is trembling in his seat.
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| Photo credit: Wikipedia |
Now tied at twenty sets. The pros are drenched,
The sun hangs low, some bleacher seats are bare,
But still they battle on as if entrenched.
No longer le tennis; it's now la guerre.
Now fifty-one to fifty. . . fifty-two!
Only the ref and tennis pros remain
As dawn's first warming beams of light poke through
On glist'ning sweat and faces wracked with pain.
The loser falls and cries; so too the champ.
They wonder now about what they have done
And why. Through ev'ry scrape and swing and cramp
They did not yield the fight — but what was won?
The winner gets to see his name in print.
The loser? Only yellow pocket lint.
Yes, I've got one quatrain too many for a classic, Shakespearean sonnet. But still, it keeps the form.
@CollinsMandy (once again) suggested a poem about lint, and my Kansan friend Eric Nelson, himself a tennis menace, suggested yellow tennis ball fuzz.
