It has been, as they say, a while.
Elbows on grain of pine, with English pints
we settle
to an earnest unfolding: the maps of our
lives.
From a plateau either side of sixty,
we triangulate scarce-remembered reference
points.
Draw comfort from the parallels.
School geography
– “Never write a word
across a
line”. Now I follow contours where bitumen
seals the cracks of least resistance.
A door swings open, slamming closed;
the candle gutters. Wax spots stick to
varnish, turning hard,
and my pig’s cheek is wolfed without remark.
Our empty plates are gathered up:
time to pay and go. Pauses signpost then uncharted
shores
where old age crumbles into sea.
But anecdote
is not data;
you (as I
would) point to local redbrick history.
It says that as things have been they do not
remain.
vi.2016
