‘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.
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