there are mad old women in here all dying from one thing or another

some of them are going quietly they hardly wrinkle the sheets

there’s others who don’t stop moaning day and night

oh I’m in pain they say in terrible pain

well pain’s all relative isn’t it love

we’re all in fucking pain one way or another I tell them

I’ve got no time for pain

I’ve got no interest in it

how can I be interested in something as common or garden as pain

it’d be like being interested in breathing

/

they call this place a rest home

it’s a laugh isn’t it

the next stop’s the morgue and everyone knows it

there’s a room out the back where they put the corpses before they’re carted off they’ve offered me a bed but I said no

you might as well put me straight into a coffin as into a bed in this place

I’ve got no intention of dying just at the moment I tell them

it’s all charity in here of course

it’s all about the good deeds of the few to ease the suffering of the many

there’s a lot of that goes on

I don’t know what good it does anyone

I saw an old girl sitting in a bus stop not long ago

dead as a doornail she was

her little bit of shopping on the bench beside her

she didn’t know what hit her probably

but there she was doing what she always did when she dropped off the twig

not stuck in a bed among strangers all waiting for the end

it’s like walking the fucking plank as far as I’m concerned

/

I used to have the baby in bed with me when he was very new

he was like a little hot water bottle

Lenny didn’t like it much

I can’t get to you he said

get to me for what I said

you know what he said

well I’m not interested in that right at the moment I said

when will you be he said

I don’t know I said I’ve got other things on my mind

what things he said

I’m a new mother now I said and my life’s changed

I’ve got to sort myself out

sort what out he said

how do I know I said I’m just getting started

what am I supposed to do in the meantime he said

you have to be patient I said

he didn’t like that too much

but I wasn’t budging

and I put my arms around the baby and lifted him up and laid him on my belly

we haven’t thought of a name yet I said

what should we call him

call him anything you like said Lenny