My favourite story

[Keith]

will be written by a man with a bad limp
who only writes on his good days.
When the light fills his study just right,
he wishes he could capture all the colours.

Each morning his stick taps down a cobblestone path
to buy fresh pastries and strong coffee,
always says "good morning"
to a lady watering flowers,
she only ever smiles back.
One day she will pick him a buttonhole
and change everything
by kissing his cheek and smoothing
a soft hand down his lapel.

He works with an old typewriter
named Jessie after his wife, worries
that one day he will open the study door
and find that its heart is no longer beating.

Sometimes he rests, sipping beer
under his favourite olive shade,
watching the sky for feeding swallows,
chasing the heat of a late afternoon.

His face has readable lines,
with a thought he takes a journey
beyond the pain in his leg,
around the agapanthus out
through the open window
to travel across the downs,
running like a child along
the edge of a wind swept beach.

The words always find him thirsty
as he sits deserted,
arid until the rains come.
He cries as he writes,
only stopping to wipe his glasses.