When my old man was dying Harry was there,
came to the ward every day with books,
news of the latest racing, football,
gossip, the lot. And when he couldn't get
he'd make a tape for the old man to play,
with Harry talking nonsense and cracking on,
stupid old jokes and taking the piss
about Hitler and Churchill and Dad in the desert.
He'd sit by the bed and read him stories
and bits of writing no one reads any more
like Buchan and Cronin and people like that.
They were uncommonly close though as a lad
Harry would row about politics
and the working class being dumb as oxen
and once the old man fizzed up all purple
and shouted You cheeky young get, and Mam
came in saying, I'll not have language like that
in my house. But they always made up
and when Harry was away and not seen for years
he'd sometimes ask about that cheeky young get
as if he were a secret son, like a son
he wished he's had, who was always free
and loose and careless with life, someone
fertile and common as fireweed who would
spring up and flourish in any soil
and turn a bit of derelict land
to a purple pink paradise out of nothing
but air and water and sunlight.