scar tissue

scar tissue

you used to fight crime

nowadays

you fight sunday grime

hosing down

a retirement land rover

whilst indoors

your wife

no longer bends over

since her hip went

making love

has sent

you into fantasy

drilling deep

through her pained boredom

into unresolved

cold cases

girls with topknots

dealing bags of brown

dead smiles on granite faces

these are the places

you get lost

emptying yourself

never quite shakes

the images free

these fallen girls

you could bully

when you still had

the uniform

that faked integrity