I’m best observed on stage,
Propping a spear, or making endless
Exits and entrances with my servant’s
patter, Yes, sir. O no, sir. If I get
These midget moments wrong, the monstrous fabric
Shrinks to unwanted sniggers.

But my heart’s in the unobtrusive,
The waiting-room roles: driving to hospitals,
Parking at hospitals. Holding hands under
Veteran magazines; making sense
Of consultants’ monologues; asking pointed
Questions politely; checking dosages,
Dates; getting on terms with receptionists;
Sustaining the background music of civility.

At home in the street you may see me
Walking fast in case anyone stops:
getting on, getting better my formula
For well-meant intrusiveness.

At home,
Thinking ahead: Bed? A good idea!
(Bed solves a lot); answer the phone,
Be wary what I say to it, but grateful always;
Contrive meals for hunger-striker; track down
Whimsical soft-centred happy-all-the-way-through novels;
Find the cat (mysteriously reassuring);
Cancel things; pretend all’s well,
Admit it’s not. Learn to conjugate all the genres of misery:
Tears, torpor, boredom, lassitude, yearnings
For a simpler illness, like a broken leg.
Enduring ceremonial delays. Being referred
Somewhere else. Consultant’s holiday. Saying Thank you,
For anything to everyone
Not the star part.
And who would want it? I jettison the spear,
The servant’s try, the terrible drone of Chorus:
Yet to my thinking this act was ill advised
It would have been better to die*. No it wouldn’t!

I am here to make you believe in life.
*Chorus: from Oedipus Rex, trans. EF Watling