Athritic Fingers Have To Last

These painful, cold athritic fingers have to last
much longer yet, they’re all I have to keep the pages
on the screen prescribed with glowing words, my favoured antidote
to weak and skulking weariness; the cups of strong black coffee
can distress an empty stomach used to tea especially in the morning.
I ask myself, why such a thankless task? A thousand poems?
At one each other day that’s 5.49 years, and who would care
– much less, perhaps, notice, should I fail? Yes I will prevail,
with deference to the quality of written word, and if you sense
a diminution in the power my words project, why then protest!
I would be thankful just for that. To know you’d take a cane to shoddy work
would add the spice that’s needed in this lonely quest.
But did you know the hardest part is hours just sitting
on my arse, a nearly numb, and I suspect
potentially rebellious bum.
© I.D. Carswell