I Could Have Written A Book About ...

That impish look – dripping wet
from your shower when I’d wrap you
in a towel and how your eyes lit up
when I’d bring you breakfast in bed
as a surprise. How I talked you out
of suicide when you backed out our drive
straight across the road, and left Mr. Taylor’s
new Mercedes somewhat … modified.

How good an artist you were. One day,
who knows, there might just be a market
for off-kilter rainbows. How you lived
for your garden, your plants and seedlings.
The pomegranate tree you fertilised
by hand with a tiny sable paintbrush
and I remarked how expert you were
at playing birds and bees, and we made it
a first on the greenhouse floor. How you
blushed from then on if you happened to
bump into our next-door neighbours.

The day you mowed a rat. Previously dead
you hastened to add. Out of sight, out of mind,
your philosophy. Till the mower seized up
and it was down to me to fix it, and boy,
did that mower stink! One evening in spring,
when you rescued a newly-hatched chick
from the jaws of next door’s cat, cupped
in your hands, like you were praying.
Later on, you confessed that you did.

When they said I had Parkinson’s Disease
and you dried my tears – bought me a T-shirt that said,
‘Speedy Gonzalez’ in response to my overworked
phrase, “Sorry it’s taking so long, but I don’t do ‘quick’!”
So much I could have written, but I didn’t see fit.
Couldn’t see for looking what was right there
under my nose. And so, for what it’s worth,
this is your story. The one I never wrote.