Last dance

A knot loosening in his brain
has closed the book of expectation.

He shuffles for miles in purple tracksuit bottoms,
mumbles the thing again and again.

What comes out of his mouth defies meaning
what matter now are words already spoken.

The suits have gone to the charity shop
but for one that will do later.

The job was good, they let her keep his car
it sits in the driveway looking big.

He dines on scrambled eggs and meat cut up small,
the same for her, she can't be bothered.

The bedroom-slipper shimmy the nightly dance
she catches him on the street trotting home to mother

and partners him back to the room
the smell of cigarettes and disinfectant.

While she sleeps he shuttles between lock and lock
muttering the thing is, some step to be taken, but what?

Published, 2002, in The Interpreter's House, Issue 20.