Scratchy old coats

I find an unregarded space –
as it might be, between the fridge
and the living-room door
or by the french windows
where the occupants come and go
round the bird-box next to the outstout. 

And I think at long last
of what it’s always been like
to be a dead sibling’s shadow,
the consolation child,
the miss-the-marker, la déception –
some pennies, I guess,
are surely reluctant to drop.

And I think of all those people
close by and further and further off
and of how, if I’d been allowed
a crystal eye from the outset,
I’d have seen them for what they were
and are, and passed on giving them
the time of day, and held
to my side of the street.

I think of those I’ve really liked,
who made a pleasure
of the trade of time.  Few enough,
few enough.  And last of all I think
of the threads to be picked up,
the scratchy old coats to be pulled on again
when the present absurdity is over.
And I realise that, mostly,
they should lie as dropped – that
I can see daylight
through the usefulness of some
and should never in the first place
have stooped down for others.

Outstout: a brick outbuilding (colloquial; also Scots adjective, ‘strong, sturdy, hardy’).

April 2020.