Gooseberry Season

    Which reminds me. He appeared

    at noon， asking for water. He‘d walked from town

    after losing his job， leaving me a note for his wife and his brother

    and locking his dog in the coal bunker.

    We made him a bed

    and he slept till Monday.

    A week went by and he hung up his coat.

    Then a month， and not a stroke of work， a word of thanks，

    a farthing of rent or a sign of him leaving.

    One evening he mentioned a recipe

    for smooth， seedless gooseberry sorbet

    but by then I was tired of him： taking pocket money

    from my boy at cards， sucking up to my wife and on his last night

    sizing up my daughter. He was smoking my pipe

    as we stirred his supper.

    Where does the hand become the wrist？

    Where does the neck become the shoulder？ The watershed

    and then the weight， whatever turns up and tips us over that

    razor‘s edge

    between something and nothing， between

    one and the other.