The thought of DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck making free and easy with my diary feels like a violation of my private space. The forensic nature of their scrutiny unsettles me, the embarrassment of a life examined and found wanting.

Wednesday October 10th

How to Read a Poem

Always have a drink in your hand,

preferably a large one

(the drink, not the hand).

Before commencement of reading,

delicately frisk the poem.

It may contain an incendiary device.

Begin at a word of your choosing.

proceeding methodically through the others,

or haphazardly, according to taste.

Wring the meaning from it,

being careful not to cut yourself on a metaphor.

Rinse and repeat several times.

Dispose of it safely on completion

in your nearest radioactive waste depository,

or on a local bookshelf.

I made a start on This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave.

It is only sixty pages long and contains sixteen poems. I had expectations of finishing it by lunchtime but, by the time I put it down this evening, I’d only managed to make it through the first two poems. I have re-read each of these approximately thirty times in an attempt to understand them. This is proving to be a futile exercise. They have now become just a series of unconnected words floating around the page. Two hours alone were spent on:

your bright kimono face and lacquer box remonstrations

in courtly Zenobian tones of sepia. The door closes.

Use me not as your plinth.

I’m finding it harder work than The Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword. I hope there will be a prize for finishing it.

Thursday October 11th

Baby on Board

This badge proud-pinned to my lapel

may proclaim ‘Baby on Board’ but it fails to dispel

the mistrust that sits around me. Suspicion crams

itself into the carriage. They’d rather see me hang.

Me! With my aching back and Monday morning sickness,

these need-to-go-to-bed eyes, and a belly that thickens

beneath my shirt like the skin on a rice pudding,

and causes my trousers to involuntarily unbutton.

Me! A clearly pregnant man in his forties, unshaven

with three days’ stubble who is experiencing unruly cravings

for pistachio ice cream and shredded wheat.

But no, not a single ‘please, DO have this seat’.

I suppose that’s what happens in these post-truth days;

No one believes anything another says.

Inside, I feel something stirring.

I clutch at straps for the remaining journey.

I was standing on a tube train, six months pregnant. No one offered up their seat to me in spite of the badge pinned to my lapel clearly stating my condition. My fellow passengers shifted uneasily in their seats, staring at their feet, not wanting to catch my eye. I glanced down again at my badge. It now read ‘Murderer on Board’.