Moving

He moved house in his ninetieth year

all by himself. Not because the flat

he had was unsuitable,

nor that he couldn’t manage the stairs.

There was something else at play,

unsaid, that prompted the flit

to a sheltered place several

shades more grim.

Not that it was bad, not that he moaned,

not that he did not fit in.

But it was his last beginning,

proving to himself

bloody mindedness made sense.

Disquiet at his own comfort

maybe made him go,

possibly the sound of

the dying neighbour below,

or his own coughing at night

(I’m a bronchial owl, he said),

somehow mocking the far

worse wheelchair trapped

soul beneath his floorboards.