Matthew Paul – “End of”

End of

Outside Morden Station,
I’m stopped dead
by my late father’s double
ordering an ‘OAP Cod ’n’ Chips Deal’
at the counter of Fish & Kebabs.
The bus shelter’s rammed
with pensioners,
all of whom give me the evils
when I contemplate squeezing in
from the pelting February rain;
so I stand beside an elderly woman
in a dodgy phone shop’s
fire-exit doorway. She’s off
to St Raphael’s Hospice, North Cheam,
to visit her husband,
who’s ninety-four;
no, ninety-eight. He spent last week
in a nursing home as respite
—for her more than him—
but ended up with rampant
pneumonia and bruising down one leg,
which no-one could explain.
I witter on about
my father’s end of life. Our bus rounds
the corner. She tunes me out.

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Matthew Paul’s collection, The Evening Entertainment, was published by Eyewear in 2017. His two collections of haiku – The Regulars and The Lammas Lands – and co-written/edited (with John Barlow) anthology, Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku, were published by Snapshot Press. He lives in Rotherham, blogs at matthewpaulpoetry.blog and tweets @MatthewPaulPoet.