This is you in red trousers.
Cutting up pedestrians as you loudly pontificate
About everywhere else but here.
It’s a sunny day, there’s not a cloud,
But you’d been to Turkey once,
And that holiday across the States
By Amtrak, you’ll be doing that again.
And your son, now in Canada, he’s doing so well,
And he’s making more than he ever did in the City.
And you and Maud, you’ll be joining him for Christmas,
And maybe you’ll retire there,
When you retire next,
Before you get bored again;
Before you realise that you need something
To distract from the Nothing and the –
What was that, Maud? – you’ll ask
As you realise you’ve left her behind
And she’ll be talking to that friend of hers –
You forget the name –
And it’ll be inconsequential,
Because it’s always the same with the women,
And you couldn’t bear it if this was all it was for you,
If all you did was talk about money and holidays
And investments and your children living their lives
As if for you.
Without the “As if”.
You couldn’t bear it if you were never in the moment,
And you failed entirely to see what was around you,
And you walked into the store
And you picked up the red trousers
And you thought they might suit.

This is you in red trousers.
Best stick with the jeans, then, hadn’t you?

Mike Hickman (@MikeHic13940507) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including a 2018 play about Groucho Marx. He has recently been published in the Blake-Jones Review, Bitchin’ Kitsch, the Cabinet of Heed, the Potato Soup Journal, and the Trouvaille Review.