poems

 Caretaking

Sometimes my husband seems more like an old dog

He doesn't talk much

He's no trouble

I feed him

Make him coffee 

Sweep around his feet a la Andy Capp.

The other day I got cross.

"How will you cope if I die? 

"You'd have to go into a home!"

"No I won't," he calmly replied.

"I'll go onto Tinder."

"Huh!" I said.

"Don't imagine you could list your achievements!

Comrades and the Argus

Are much too long ago to count!"

"Oh no,"

he said. 

"I'd just say: Ou man soek vrekplek."

I laughed.

But I thought of all those widows and divorcees 

who live near us

Who have no house /no pension /no car

They'd be on him like fleas.

 

“We are but puppets, creatures of our fate” Eleanor Roosevelt

My husband cracks when he falls

His strings are cut, tangled.

His body is broken and bruised.

Breath forces in and out while he sleeps

Uneven and halting.

His leg, sliced and pinned,

causes wobbles on the way to the bathroom.

But

He used to be dancing Pierrot

Defiantly wearing a kaftan to posh engineering events.

We’d make love in ridiculous places:

The stairs at the Carlton hotel, or giggling in a shower in Venice

(Complete with mosquitoes and desire)

I’d be terrified when he threw the babies in the air

Though I knew his hands were safe.

One thing is still to be found in the ruins of his life:

He looks at me, smiles and says:

“Hazel, never train to be a rabbi!”

(after I cut the milk sachet open)

Hidden somewhere inside that battered biltong body:

My handsome ferocious boy.