Every evening at the care home, I pull in
two armchairs til they’re facing. Opposites,
we never fist bump, high-five or
touch each other’s vying outstretched fingers.

How two men can become
four men can become
eight men

Take eight each of hex bolts
washers, locks…
it’s important
to fasten these tightly.

Things have been rough lately.
It seems impossible now,
as the breeze relieves us

The new year slouches forward, unlovable,
barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes
and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel.

Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.

my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station

He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen. 

We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—