Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Declaration



‘Life is shorter down the red end of a match',
he said apropos of nothing and continued to look
out the window, his pupils tiny drill-bits halted, still.

I was about to say
but didn’t.

He was flicking his thumb along his index finger like
a match along the sandpaper strip of a box of matches
and something was...

I think he was smoothing a thought for verbalisation,
when it must have dropped through the floorboards so
there the whirring stalled.

I said ‘how do you mean?’

He turned toward me with his teeth in a clear white strip
which closed to lips as his focussing eyes softened;
‘I’ve got cancer' he said.

No comments: