Slugs Poem by Roger elkin

dogged his entire life.

In the greenhouse, those thin pink
erasers that slid beneath box and brick,
rubbed out his life-blood, plant-love.
Slim fingers ungloved, gliding through dark.
Wet nightmares. Shrinking old men
spilling semen. Fixed to his thumb
pilled like chewing-gum; had to scrub
hands to be rid of slime.

Outside, thick black turds that ambushed
compost. Muck that mouthed on muck.
Sprinkling salt, watched them writhe, reduced
to melting eyes, glued with their own juice.
Or cutting them, split pulsing guts
that shrivelled into gritty blebs
muscling beneath unsteady boots.

Those stretched amber caramels
that trampled on or squelched
always stuck, silvered up his soles,
clung to his insteps. Never flinched.
Scrape, scrape. They rolled and rolled;
grimly hung to their gristly inch.

Hanging bed-trapped those last
six weeks was still visited by slugs:
skin-pink owning his slow toes,
black bedsores sliming up his legs,
brown slipping down ground-in scars.

They tongued his slobbering cheeks,
sipped dry those sliding hours,
erased his paper-thin limbs.
Scrape, scrape. They never flinched.

Now coming suddenly on slugs
mouthing amongst flowers
brings memories of him

dogging me dogging those
dogging him:

old foes; old lags.