Sitting in a Twinkling Shack

I’m sitting in a twinkling shack

or palace, call it what you will.

Porcelain angels glint and crack

on the windowsill.

She stirs my tea, she jams my toast,

she scrubs my plate until it bends.

I mustn’t help my shuffling host,

as that offends.

So I just wait and sit and stare,

waited on and hypnotised.

I’m locked into a frilly chair,

immobilised,

a helpless slave to servitude

as years are syphoned off my life.

Don’t take them! God! Already you

have eighty-five.