Poem 197

I can’t remember whether this was written with anyone in particular in mind but it’s from 1984 and the previous year working as a psychology researcher my job was to code and analyse a cohort study of everyone who committed suicide in New Zealand in the year 1980 – over three hundred of them – so I had a lot of suicide stories in my head …

Expectations

I want to know
how it all fell down

is that sticking my nose in?

is it only your business
how the girl
most likely to
didn't

you had all the balls in the air
at the same time
and you dropped the lot

would you say there was no hope
for some people
no matter how bright a quilt
they wrap themselves in

or that it was just
one bad morning
somehow
a mistake

or do you say
it's quiet now

let me sleep