Granddaddying

Veins in the varnish give me crazy-glaze cheeks and family poke jokes at my turkey-neck skin

there’s nothing in the attic now me and my picture are getting old with the years getting thin

jeez it’s not years sometimes it’s fears it’s months or days between here-I-am and the horizon

my head keeps turning to the burning years behind me but there’s a future I can’t fix my eyes on

and maybe grab a jab to keep me coronavirus-happy without my crappy immunity showing

or maybe I’ll hang around face down in an ICU all tubes and electrodes and in a coma not knowing

and the TV readers and community leaders saying the government knows where it’s going

while the graphs are a laugh ‘cos all they want to prove is how the retail cash can keep flowing

the lockdown’s not lockdown if the boats are still coming and the airlines keep people flying

into crowded airports where security’s a joke the liars don’t get caught and people keep dying

no hugs no rolls on the rugs but it’s Skype-kids and Whatsapp-kids and a virtual bedtime song

and petulant posts and no-longer-friends with the first-in-the-jab-queue-ers who voted wrong

and Facebook is weary with conspiracy theories and the kook and the crook turned Covid-denier

the cheap cracks and the antivaxx and the black dog brain fog panic like a kitten in a tumble-drier

my skin’s an old jacket my body can’t hack it I’m tired retired I’m nearly expired I’m done

life can’t rehearse finding out makes it worse it’s the end my friend soon it’s goodnight everyone