He comes around some days and he sits with us on the front porch and he looks out of place, you know. He takes off his jacket and he loosens his tie and unpicks his top shirt button. But still he looks suited and boardroom. He’s old enough he could be somebody’s pa, and his hair is like silver or salt, and he sucks and blows air like he has all the cares of the world in his pockets.
His name’s Rob and he says his life is just shit and he says being with us is the best part of his day. He says he’s taken a road somewhere way back and sitting with us he’s thinking maybe it was the wrong road. And it is that ‘maybe’ that is trouble.
We say he is welcome and what is ours is his. And Kitty licks his cheek and strokes his hand and she says he should just take it easy a while. And he helps Kitty shell peas into a pot, and Carpenter passes him a smoke, and I swear you can see all the shit just leave him and his face softens and his whole body just unwinds.
He has a wife and kids, he says, and a property at the sea front and he calls it a property and does not call it a house or a home. And he says his wife sleeps in a different bed these days and his kids pretend not to know him and he is all loss and hurt. And he says he is a lesson to us all and he wishes he could turn the clock back and make all his choices over.
Rob is a soul in pain, that’s for sure, and all messed up in his head and he knows that he is. And we is like angels, he says, and what we say is like the soothing words of god, and he can breath here and there aint no tightness to his breathing. That’s the smoke talking and we all get like that. And Linda has the radio on and there’s music playing so loud that we don’t have to listen to his words or even to our own. And so Rob sitting with us is as easy as not.
He’s right in a way. About the easy it is here and how we don’t talk property and we don’t even think that way. And money is just something to fill your pockets if it’s more than you need to keep body and soul together. And love is what really makes the days amount to something, that and taking the time to watch sunrises or sunsets and to listen to the birds or the radio or just to own your own breath.
And Rob says only ‘maybe’ he took the wrong road somewhere. And he sits with us some nights and he’s welcome to. And he eats and drinks with us and smokes a joint or two and kissing Kitty till the cows come home. But in the end he goes back to the road he took before and his beach side property and his wife sleeping in another bed and his kids that don’t know him. Cos it’s what he knows and though it looks easy, what we do, it aint so easy as you think.
Patricia Ann McNair 
He comes around some days and he sits with us on the front porch and he looks out of place, you know. He takes off his jacket and he loosens his tie and unpicks his top shirt button. But still he looks suited and boardroom. He’s old enough he could be somebody’s pa, and his hair is like silver or salt, and he sucks and blows air like he has all the cares of the world in his pockets.
His name’s Rob and he says his life is just shit and he says being with us is the best part of his day. He says he’s taken a road somewhere way back and sitting with us he’s thinking maybe it was the wrong road. And it is that ‘maybe’ that is trouble.
We say he is welcome and what is ours is his. And Kitty licks his cheek and strokes his hand and she says he should just take it easy a while. And he helps Kitty shell peas into a pot, and Carpenter passes him a smoke, and I swear you can see all the shit just leave him and his face softens and his whole body just unwinds.
He has a wife and kids, he says, and a property at the sea front and he calls it a property and does not call it a house or a home. And he says his wife sleeps in a different bed these days and his kids pretend not to know him and he is all loss and hurt. And he says he is a lesson to us all and he wishes he could turn the clock back and make all his choices over.
Rob is a soul in pain, that’s for sure, and all messed up in his head and he knows that he is. And we is like angels, he says, and what we say is like the soothing words of god, and he can breath here and there aint no tightness to his breathing. That’s the smoke talking and we all get like that. And Linda has the radio on and there’s music playing so loud that we don’t have to listen to his words or even to our own. And so Rob sitting with us is as easy as not.
He’s right in a way. About the easy it is here and how we don’t talk property and we don’t even think that way. And money is just something to fill your pockets if it’s more than you need to keep body and soul together. And love is what really makes the days amount to something, that and taking the time to watch sunrises or sunsets and to listen to the birds or the radio or just to own your own breath.
And Rob says only ‘maybe’ he took the wrong road somewhere. And he sits with us some nights and he’s welcome to. And he eats and drinks with us and smokes a joint or two and kissing Kitty till the cows come home. But in the end he goes back to the road he took before and his beach side property and his wife sleeping in another bed and his kids that don’t know him. Cos it’s what he knows and though it looks easy, what we do, it aint so easy as you think.