Which reminds me. He appeared
at noon， asking for water. He‘d walked from town
after losing his job， leaving me a note for his wife and his brother
and locking his dog in the coal bunker.
We made him a bed
and he slept till Monday.
A week went by and he hung up his coat.
Then a month， and not a stroke of work， a word of thanks，
a farthing of rent or a sign of him leaving.
One evening he mentioned a recipe
for smooth， seedless gooseberry sorbet
but by then I was tired of him： taking pocket money
from my boy at cards， sucking up to my wife and on his last night
sizing up my daughter. He was smoking my pipe
as we stirred his supper.
Where does the hand become the wrist？
Where does the neck become the shoulder？ The watershed
and then the weight， whatever turns up and tips us over that
razor‘s edge
between something and nothing， between
one and the other.