Hooray Spain!
Hooray soft kick,
hooray edge into the goal,
hooray England so close.
Hooray women!
I want to believe in my health,
the health of the sport, the health
of the word, the health of the world
at play on the field for all of us.
See the women cross field pass,
see the women head goalward,
see the women strong legs.
I play the we, play into the we.
If we can win, the win is for the we.
If we lose, the loss swept into the win.
Spain is not my country, nor England.
What in the world, a win—
what for the world, a win—rejoice!
Here, where, how, and why for the world,
for the game, for women, whoever,
wherever, this world moment, believe.
Margaret Rozga served as the 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate and the 2021 inaugural artist/scholar in residence at the UW Milwaukee at Waukesha Field Station. Her fifth book is Holding My Selves Together: New and Selected Poems (Cornerstone Press 2021). Cornerstone Press will also publish her 2024 forthcoming book, Restoring Prairie.