Frome

Frome

He gets the call,
clear as crystal,
the silver threads of smoke,
clouds above his coffee -
they turn cold.
Forty eight hours,
she says,
not more,
no more left,
she says.
And I remember that call
for my Mother,
gangrene and morphine,
remember who made it,
how their voice was veiled in light,
crackled in the emptiness
between them and I.
This isn't that call,
it's his,
his son,
his cancer,
his blood pooling in the sink,
his forty eight hours
stretched thin with uncertainty
and yet complete, antagonistic
certainty.
I hold the boy of a man
as he weeps over Hobnobs,
eyelashes dropping - purest of diamonds -
Each one flattens the table,
pulls himself up by testosterone and conditioning.
He needs a driver, needs a moment,
toilet roll bundled into balls in the workroom.
I help him lock up,
close the windows,
slam doors,
we work together quickly,
and in the quiet care
of our silence,
he takes the time to exhale,
plan and erase
every hope he had,
all those days
and I peel off these charlatan robes
I feel dressed in.
It's his story,
not mine,
and yet I'm glad that he didn't
go home,
wasn't sat all alone,
in the silence of a room
waiting for a call
to take him back
to where he's from.