Who's this? | Who's this? | What next? |
I didn't know them at all | I didn't know him before | I'm not sure |
But when they came through the door | But going through the door, | Whose door |
I saw them as my sons, | I saw | I ought to choose, |
Or lovers. | A man I expected to be old, and frail | To let them know |
Or | Welcome me in as | |
Someone with a need | His child | How people |
That I had met before | Or child's friend, that | Choose to show |
| He was keen to nurture — | Their pain. |
And I | And I | And I |
Told them about | | |
What happened to me. | Found myself asking | Remember when |
I knew I could make them see | About me | They first showed me |
How it was to live | How it was to see | How I might be |
Both after and before | Him both after and before | (For them and for the rest) |
My heart attack, or | His heart attack. | The best of me |
Stoma, or | A crisis | |
Lobectomy | Cutting through his well loved | Sharing their pain, |
(Shock horror and gore, yes, | Life … | Their lives, |
We all go there sometimes) | | Their ways, |
It's this they didn't understand | His wife | I want to show them |
It's this | Serving tea, and standing | |
That I could make them know and see | On the edge | From the margins |
Through show and tell | Knew well | How the hell |
By the end of half an hour | By the end of half an hour | Of half an hour |
| | Of damaged life |
We knew each other | We had not even edged | Shows us |
Very well | Into the kind of hell | The way |
| That they had both lived through | To understanding |