GIVEN TIME

First published in December 2021

Given time,
we could have been friends.

I shiver in my hoodless coat,
she sits sedate
in her electric wheelchair,
like me, sheltering
from the battering rain,
a sudden blitter of hail.

We exchange smalltalk,
the sheer nuisance
of growing old, how
age has caught up with us,
neither anticipating
its mind-numbing irritations.

She tells me how
she came to use crutches,
I talk of my failing sight -
Nothing we can do about it,
rueful smiles, Just make
the best of things - my lift ...

Given time, Jackie and I
might have been friends.