Perplexed

You, bearded with unbrushed hair,

hunched and shuffling in the wrong slippers,

searching once again for clues to decipher the riddle

of your being here in this large room

with its vinyl-covered sofas its ping-pong table

and the Jeremy Kyle Show shouting

even now about the unexpected paternity

of someone's wretched child.

Your t shirt does not feel like yours.

It hangs loose on your bony back, is not your colour.

You look down, read Lonsdale from your chest.

You take it off and sit bare-chested, put it on the table

with the bag of Kent cherries I have brought you,

some of them over-ripe and squashy.

One has made a red wet hole in the paper, protrudes.

Look, it's trying to get out, I say.

What do you mean it's trying to get out?

you ask perplexed, slowly turning your eyes on me,

a blue million miles.