Personal Trainer Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

FAT WITH THE PROMISE OF LEAN STREAKS

Late harvest saw us lifting bales to trailers
And up from the trailers to shippon lofts
Using a 2-pronged pitchfork or pikel
Jabbed centre-bale and hefted up in one sweep.

At the glooming of a late summer's day
The last loads would be brought in
As a chill caught sweat and chaff
With aches akimbo as the tractor backed up.

Dank bales leaved with Cheshire autumn
From the flats along the Ankersplatt
A fair jag on and one last tussle
To put them overhead aired aloft.

"Tha mun shape lad
Dunna be like th'owd woman
With a belly-full of butter milk
An wimmy-wammy i'the bitlin.

There inna any way but reet.
Tha mun stand reet lad -
Jab an swing in one go
Shifting as th'weight rises".

Big men and me a youth of sixteen
Jokes and hard judgments -
But they are long gone
Mown down by salty home-cured bacon -
Fat with the promise of lean streaks.

....

Late in life I have come back to the gym
And succumbed to the debonaire charm
Of my personal trainer Maria
Who comes from Wroclaw or ‘vrotswaf.

She has devised a program to improve me
And I stand looking at myself in the mirror
Holding a weighted ball out-stretched
Balancing on a BoSu and bending low.

I try to think of new things to say or ask
About Poland to reduce the pain -
But then she has me bridging
And holding for 10 more - she can't count.

"That's very good"
She says unconvincingly:
"Lift your tummy up
And squeeze your glutes.

Take a break if you are dizzy -
Next time bring a water bottle.
Now for your favourite
The lunges, leading leg straight at first".

Beautiful people in pink and black lycra
Pounding music and purposeful endeavour
And I am still here
Ready for a chick-pea and kinwa salad at the Maranui -
Fat with the promise of lean streaks.