National Poetry Month!
Long Distance
--Tony Harrison
I
Your bed's got two wrong sides. Your life's all grouse.
I let your phone-call take its dismal course:
Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house!
Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce!
Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back.
Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts.
(The diabetes comes hard on the track
of two coronaries and cataracts).
Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now Ah push
food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out
And t'only reason now for beer's to flush
(so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out.
When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets,
Lifesavers, my father's New World Treats,
still in the big brown bag, and only bought
rushing through JFK as a last thought.
II
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
--Tony Harrison
I
Your bed's got two wrong sides. Your life's all grouse.
I let your phone-call take its dismal course:
Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house!
Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce!
Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back.
Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts.
(The diabetes comes hard on the track
of two coronaries and cataracts).
Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now Ah push
food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out
And t'only reason now for beer's to flush
(so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out.
When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets,
Lifesavers, my father's New World Treats,
still in the big brown bag, and only bought
rushing through JFK as a last thought.
II
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.