Mateship

Chris Andrews

Was it eupepsia? I wasn’t thinking:

Why does everything have to be such a rush.

Or the mottled weather? I wasn’t even

wondering how indignant to be about what

when the media and self-interest provide

reasons to keep me indignant all the time.

Walking to the station, I had a vague sense

of what it might mean to feel real affection

for the things — the patterns of energy-stuff —

in the world, and, being one such or many

myself, to adjust them here and there in right

but unnecessary ways. The shadow-pools

in the street seemed continuous with a night

like a party spilling from a mansion split

into flats along a canal, an open-

ended night full of divergent adventures,

novelty lamps, doors ajar, strange languages

and splashes. Then a vaguely familiar guy

with his elbows out came up to me and said

“Usually I think, Life will sort you out, mate,

but this time it looks like life has to be me.”