The Answer
Oh, you know me: resourceful type. I’ll manage.
– my reply
as we sat in a corridor grown too familiar,
waiting for the nurse to call your name.
You understood, as did we both,
the function of the words —
legerdemain, no more,
(the act well-practised now)
to feint, divert and by such palming
draw attention from the squirming gnaw
of it: the fear – insidious, tacit, dark –
we held and hid in kind
and, being my confederate
in this triumph of illusion,
smiled as though you’d never had a doubt.
In truth,
we’d not a clue between us
how I’d make my way
nor did we ever – even in the
dwindling, end-of-season days
when fear and falsehood both
had given way to last-act honesty
and oral morphine taken as required.
Now,
reaching for the calendar
to tear off and discard
a month used up
like every other month
without you,
I know the answer.
Doing fine, thanks. That’s the way it goes
on the rarer-now-and-few occasions
people think to ask.
They understand – are grateful for –
the function of the words
and, being my confederates
in this triumph of illusion,
smile.
Currently based in Norwich, Birkenhead-born Ken Cumberlidge has been writing and performing his work for 40+ years. Recent work has appeared online (Algebra of Owls / IS&T / The Open Mouse / Picaroon / Spilling Cocoa… / Strange Poetry / Snakeskin).