When things were good

When things were good

The money, a steady stream

Work, going well

I let off steam

Playing jazz in a hangdog dive

With low light and low life

Who shovelled coke

On credit cards

Buried secrets

With the dead

But dug the music

Burrowed into it

Turned it over in too-full minds

Doctors and nurses

Trauma surgeons

Too busy chasing cars

To worry about daylight

Even the pathologist

Raved until the end.

He always wore a fixed grin

Which was more rigor than mortice

We all stumbled home

For a couple of hours

Before going back to the hospital

We were young enough to know better

Too much sleep

Was a hypnotic

It deadened the nerves

And sometimes we needed them

To keep going.

The house was nice

Barely afforded

On Health service wages

A necessary luxury.

We kept Koi

In a garden pond.

One morning

The sun already set to rise

I could smell something awful

From the street

All of the fish were dead

Too heavy to be lifted

By the Heron that attacked

They were left

Bloodied and ruined

Poisoning the water

Killing them all.

I fished them out one by one

Wrapped them in threadbare towels

None too deeply fleeced.

Swaddled and bandaged

I laid them to rest

In a wheely bin

No prayers but a lot of cursing

Emptied the pond

Using a high-pressure hose

To clean the area

As if it was a wound

I disinfected

Abraided the surface

Scrubbed it raw

Raked it over

But the smell lingered

For weeks

Until I dug it up

And took the whole lot to the dump.

What a waste.

Just thinking about it

Is enough

To make me want to heave

I never did find that heron

If I had

He, like me

Would have been a basket case.