Three poems

by Robert Kemp

1. Mitcham Mothers

Coach loads at the theatre outing:
Best clothes, best hair – from Mitcham, mainly.
With hearing aids and teeth and sticks
They struggle to their seats, abuzz.
With what? Not expectation but the recent past:
‘So I said . . . and she goes . . . and, really,
‘You wouldn’t believe it but it turns out . . .’
Right into and beyond the overture.

These were all once Sally Bowles
Shocking Mum with married men,
Smoking, drinking . . . trying stuff . . .
Joyful, eager, young, alive,
Breathless, bright and ever free
To make not just receive the day.
Now, tragically, like all the others
They’ve turned into their Mitcham mothers.

2. On a sixty-fifth birthday

When people reach the age of sixty-five
They wonder should they die or stay alive.
The meat of life is largely gone and now
The bones remain to make use of – but how?

Some take on unpaid work. Some take the sun,
Play golf, eat too much, do what has been done.
For me all this but also so much more:
To try whatever’s not been tried before.

I’ll have success. Or failure. Who can tell?
Whatever comes I’ll take and shake it well.
Each freshly minted day is mine to use –
I hope I’m cursed with options hard to choose.

Retired, relieved, resolved – a birthday king
Who just can’t wait to see what life may bring.

OR

Retired, relieved, resolved – a birthday queen
Who’s yet to learn what life can really mean.

3. Afterwards

Marriage. Break. Divorce. The end.
Grown up, to show no disregard
Each year we both receive and send
One birthday and one Christmas card.

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