Number 36

When the note came through the door to say that Louis at number 36
was in the hospital in a coma and was not expected to make it,
it did not really register.

They thought they had seen him,
routine tortoise up and down the pavement,
they had not noticed the conversations about Canada,
the car parts in the garage,
growing up in the country,
had stopped still as a blink.

He talked too long
about cancer,
said, they just keep snipping and hoping,
and his neighbours thought of ‘Operation’
and the alarm going off
as they watched sea gulls fly over chimney pots.