Left

Who is there left that you can talk to? Days go by.
‘Friendless, deserted’ (The Beggar’s Opera?) — left in the lurch
(what lurch?) — you languish. Time to make plans to die?
You box up some age-stained letters, set aside more stuff,
but your heart’s not in it. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
Another of your thoughtless friends falls off the perch.

Those language-teachers, those sergeant-majors, those not-quite-wives
— how old they must all be now! And those types at school:
grumbling, frowning, living their boxed-up lives —
Mr Cartwright-Brown would be a hundred and thirty-nine.
All gone… Time to wait out our world’s decline?
(Wait even longer and watch the planet cool…?)

Be serious. It’s not a dress rehearsal, OK…
Tune out the anguish — those ennuis just for you.
Take on the clichés, seize the remaining day,
put nose to grindstone, con yet another part.
Your younger son plays Mozart, learns to make art.
Well there’s him for a start — his dreams might see us through.