MAKING LOVE IN AN OLD MAN’S BED
In Edinburgh San Quentin prisoners did Endgame
and Glasgow was a waltz across Texas with you,
or at least a twirl on the station forecourt: so
joyeux to be there, under the eye of some statue
with the cackling approval of un vieux clochard
que tu aimes beaucoup, who greeted us, and
Robert’s edgy red-head scrawny scorn was pacified.
We found a bar, you drank rum and blackcurrant,
which kept you sweet and sticky. Ah wouldnae
mind a pitcher a hir. He’d drink your last drop.
We drank up and caught a rattly little suburban
toytown train way out to Robert’s grandfather’s stop.
When he set eyes on you he was one happy old man,
tiny, bald, stooped, barely alive, reeking of auld reekie.
Trouble wi the waterworks, he confided. We all sat
around his gas fire, still flickering in the August heat.
I recall he demonstrated the wicker shopping basket
in which he pulled up his milk, lowering his puss.
Darkness falls. We listen to his full memory tank
oozing bile. How that young Peter Hain is a bastard
who neglected his visiting relatives in favour of
a final stint on his Phd. His service as a cavalryman
in the Russo-Turkish war. He was a young man,
he didn’t have a small clue what it was about.
Robert, amused, coaxed out another family story:
he began a feud with his elder brother, by letter,
a mere twenty-five year eye blink earlier. It wasnae
just that, he said, I’d had enough o’ him. Ye’ll ken
what I mean one o’ these days. Indeed, grandad.
We drank it all and polished a bottle of his malt:
tots with vintage cars on, we were infants and he
would be dead a day soon in this room of musts
and creaking chairs, a tick far fainter than its tock;
and then, half-nine, it was past time for our beds.
Robert claimed couch. The old man’s eyes danced
when he showed us two to his own back bedroom:
the damp bolster on a heavy, sagging bed. I know
ye’ll be warm enough, he said, lecherous old shit.
We rolled together, wondering if to stain the sheets
as he wished. And do you know? I believe we did.
Next morning, two Great Scots eyed us jealously.
|