Being

 

Being

 

Dobson slept the afternoon before flying

and you’d have found him lying

on crisp sheets - more lettuce than starch

after a week, but they lulled him anyway.

 

It’d been a tough day,

they all are at his age –

he’d fobbed off colleagues with a grin,

that’ll do, don’t beat yourself up about it,

that sort of thing, you know,

anything to clear the quarterdeck.

 

One was leaving for good - he’d forget

her by this time, next year,

he signed a paper, said see you later,

or some other offhand lyric by Squeeze,

watched her walk down the gangplank

a landlubber by any other name.

 

By the time the bus came

Dobson was over it,

out of there, slinging hooks,

packed his laptop, some books,

and glad to get home.

There’s an awkward nip in the air,

while he’s shuffling to and fro,

stripping the bed, taking a shower,

walking Al Sadd a couple of hours

before departure, a bite to eat, nothing heavy

and Dobson takes her hands,

squeeze shoulders,

licks desert lips –

 

and his chatter’s nonsense,

a void filler that hovers in the gap, pretense

this evening is the same as any other.

 

Later, sitting on the sofa,

she clips his nails,

puts eyedrops, smooths some sort of cream

on the elbow’s rough skin

where the ponderous weight of his fisted chin

has chaffed and bruised and rubbed.

 

There’s basketball before he leaves

and she watches him,

from under her fringe,

this small scrap of flesh, this being,

all knowing, all loving, all seeing.