Those feeble, ulcerated legs

which cannot support your shrunken body

are the powerful pistons that

drove your heavy old bike to work.

Your faltering, tearful voice speaks,

but your bellows echo down the years.

"Look at that silly tit over there"

A nurse smiles back from her patient labour.

"No bloody rabbit food or foreign muck for me"

You eat the steamed fish and salad in a plastic dish.

All politeness and compliance to

the faces of black doctors and staff

serving food you would have thrown in mum's face.

"Want a new suit boy?" You grinned

as you came in from the betting shop.

"STAND STILL! Too late it's in the tree."

Your pigeons were a fascination, but a terror too.

Excited by you clocking the winning bird,

and knowing that a loser would be my fault.

"Bloody Arabs 'll cut your throat as soon as look at ya."

The ranted bigotry lived on

fifty years after a brief military

encampment in wartime Egypt.

"What have you done with my bloody glasses?"

You squinted at the racing pages and

clutched for the telephone as

the horses lined up for the start.

"No pay today gal." You mumbled

as you came in from the betting shop.

"He's got the darkies disease he has. Bloody idle."

Revolting insult thrown at a black youth on the TV

without bothering to listen why he was there.

"Get 'em a cup o' tea gal."

The command shouted from an

armchair in front of the television

made a visit feel an imposition.

Glimpses of an intelligence

sometimes shone through

from your limited and distorted world.

Off to work before I got up for school.

Back from the pub after I was in bed.

I knew you were home when I woke

to the shouting downstairs.

In your eighty fourth year you told me

that seventy five would have been enough.

My stomach knotted.

Shame I never knew you.

I am curious now

you are dead.