To understand soccer, for me,
is to write a team of metaphors –
each thing must be another.

Churning legs are furious right angles,
passing sequences are a series of triangles,
and each shot is a ray or an arc.

The players can’t even be themselves:
Messi is young Liam Neeson;
Bjarnasson is small Thor;
Finnbogasson has my boyfriend’s cheekbones.

In this way, the game becomes mine,
the win or lose my pulse,
the field an Eden
where I’ve named all the animals.