This is difficult.
Why don’t we just live together in a whitewashed cottage by the sea
with white sheets flapping on the line in the dazzling ozone?
We could buy a threepiece suite and watch test cricket in summer
and tense psychological drama in winter.
You could make bread and butter pudding and I could erect fences.
Even though I hate dogs, I think we should have a couple don’t you ?
Or maybe you could have children! They’d slurp out from between your legs
along with half your ego and three quarters of your ambition
and with luck, if they were mine, in the evenings I’d stride
in with my wires and pliers and the warm joy of fatherhood
written all over my beaming weathered face.
Later on we could die within months of each other
and get buried in the same grave (plenty of flowers please)
near the West beach.
Why dont we do that?
Because this is difficult.