There’s a guy who, when I’m at the café I see
And I guess fifteen, twenty years older than me
Who comes in with this lady, much older again
Christ; she looks as if she is a hundred-and-ten.

She is sickle shaped, bent out in front from her waist
in regard to mobility not so well placed.
Bent chasing out after her own walking frame
So far I have not heard him call her by name.

I don’t know for certain that he is her son
I have not heard him call her as Mother, or Mum
But I have seen him feeding her spoonful by spoon
And his face shows me nothing, no sense that quite soon
That his challenge will leave, she can’t really be here,
Can she? Not still alive in six months or a year?
She couldn’t weigh more than a small bag of air
And her face hides beneath a great grey shrub of hair.

*****

There’s one thing still that I can’t learn
The thing that I’m yet to discern
If he came in alone tomorrow
Would he then feel relief or sorrow?