Goss

I ask her for news, and she answers

‘there’s three lying dead in the village’

and I smile wryly

envisaging the handiwork

of a crazed local miscreant,

wondering which streets are littered with corpses

sharp as a tact she is ahead of me

with a sombre roll call,

Jim Amey never recovered from that stroke

and Betty Simpson was knocking-on anyway,

they said it was pneumonia but

Connie Dixon was a shock though,

I only saw her last week in the post office

buying a birthday card for her daughter,

she’s in Canada,

evidently just dropped dead in the Co-op

this Saturday,

the vicar’s going to be busy,

they were saying in the café

that Jim’s kids have already got the ‘for sale’ sign up,

mind you that came from Mary Chapman,

christ! she’s laid the weight on, she’ll be next,

‘so what else is happening’, I ask,

‘oh! not a lot, nothing much happens round here’.

Published by grahamrsherwood