Nice People

And I want to be one of the nice people.
I want to turn on the television and laugh at the comedies,
answer the questions on the quizzes.
I want to hear a nuthatch, and think, privately,
‘nuthatch’. I think I saw them,
once, the nice people, through long sheets of rain.
I wanted to say, ‘Filthy weather!’, for them to say, ‘Isn’t it!’
Such things happen in books,
other sealed-off places. The village hall I escaped
into, for instance, wringing wet,
where our doubles – honestly, the spit
of us – spritzed bleach behind the serving hatch,
a party, there must have been – the way they spoke
was lovely. Nice people I let down.
I don’t wipe down the wipe-clean
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