BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS ALICE TOWLE

18.01.20

for Anthony

It’s been two years since you told me that Cookie Crisp was okay for diabetics; that sugar wasn’t too bad, was in fact healthy. You hadn’t a clue why the nurse had such a problem.

Two years since your nine lives ran out. I didn’t think you’d last so long. Said goodbye eight – no nine – times now; wondered how you survived but kept coming back. I believe that it was out of spite.

It’s been two years since you were the man I remember. You’ve become a saint. But I remember the sweary, old-fashioned, insufficiently-woke man who gambled, got drunk, didn’t die.