Aegrotat

Gary was going to Grenoble, 
dropping me off in Lyon. 
It wasn't the Boulevard Périférique 
that terrified me in '64, 
it was his nerves.

Back for his final year,
sequestered in his college room, 
he played Brassens and Brel 
non-stop for his nerves; 
relived the shaking 
of his year in France, 
cutting himself for relief 
with the sharp edge of Gitanes. 
Trembling visibly harder 
a week before his finals, 
he saw his tutor and left. 

Ten years later, 
by chance in our staff room 
at morning break, 
he'd shaken his way out of teaching. 
"I've graduated 
in educational books," he joked, 
not sure if it was a joke.

Twenty minutes of quivering 
and manning his display 
before the lesson bell, 
then the recurring defeat 
of packing away 
in the staff room, feeling
deliberately deserted. 
And on to the next school, 
another twenty minutes of quaking, 
to make a sale or die.

Brassens and Brel, 
my reel-to-reel copies,
lie side by side in my cellar,
like effigies of loved ones
finally at rest in a vault.

.