Box Of Tricks 1967 Poem by Terry Collett

Standing on Westminster Bridge with Nima
I sense she is in a bad mood:
her features betray it,
her senses send out signals.

What sort of week
have you had?
I ask.

Awful without you;
I wish you lived nearer
so I could see you everyday
rather than just weekends;
that place is driving me mad,
Nima says,
turning to look at me.

I can't come in the week,
I work and by the time
I finish work and get a train
up here it would be so late,
I say.

I know, but I just
get so frustrated at the hospital;
and then Mother came
and gave me a lecture
and put me
in an even worse mood,
Nima says,
looking back
at the Thames below
where barges and small boats
and the occasional ship pass by.

Do you believe in God?
She asks me suddenly
staring at me again.

Yes of course,
I say.

Why of course,
she says,
I don't
I think its
just mumbo-jumbo.

Buses and cars pass by us
behind on the road;
people walk past
on the pavement
over the Bridge.

Then the whole universe
has no purpose,
I say,
it is all one
big pointless circus
without God,
I say,
looking at the Thames flowing.

How comes it's pointless?
She says,
I wish you'd
tell my mother that
and maybe then
she'd get off my back.

Without God
there is no real purpose
to anything;
it is all chance
and a roll of a dice
in black space,
I say.

Can we not
talk about God;
I feel depressed
enough as it is,
she says,
I want a drink
and something to eat
and a bunk up,
she adds,
taking hold
of my hand in hers.

What here?
I say.

No,
she splutters laughing,
in the Leicester Square
or somewhere.

What sex too?
I say.

That will be postponed
until we can get a room
one weekend,
she says,
becoming serious again.

Big Ben tolls
and I look at my watch:
it is 1pm.

All right
let's go then you and I
and have a bite to eat
and a drink to drink,
I say.

So we walk off the Bridge,
walk up Whitehall
and she talks of her mother
and the doctors and nurses
and wanting a fix.

I tell her about my week
and work
and the whole box of tricks.