For Me Old Mate Jerry

well me old mate I sez
a penny for your thoughts eh
or a quid if they’re lurid enough –
y’know I can read your eyes

while I can’t say I know
precisely how you’re feelin’ –
I’m damn sure I know within
a fold of that dunny paper

all the precious things
are still there – reachin’ em’s
the bloody predicament – life
mirrored a million miles away
© 31 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

For fellow poet Jerry Hughes,
in recovery after a stroke