Hard now to forget
the unwashed paper face
dead a week or more
stranded on his bed
tossed up and dried out
like dogfish, tangled net,
on an untrod, windswept shore.
I looked, but dared not touch;
looked, but had to flee
into a death-free room
with tulips on the sill
clenched in the morning sun;
he did not trouble much
shuffling in the gloom
of his mud-walled terraced shack -
the weekly trip to town,
free meal at the club
stirring his stew around;
his hearing aid turned down
when, crouched in the western wind,
in the thickly-breathing queue -
he watched for the last bus back.