House-to-House

Hello. I’m collecting for the Lifeboats.

The drives and garages are neat with pots
and borders. Here the quids are passed across,
accepted tribute to a decency.

From time to time, the curtains twitch, the bell
chimes in a void, collector’s left to beg
donation from a pack of garden gnomes.

Then yards with cars on blocks maybe, with tyres
plonked down upon a lawn’s dishevelment,
plenty of blokes in vests quite well disposed
with scraps of change. Tonight, one five-pound note.

The various many, bank clerks, gardeners
and cabbies, nursing mothers, football men,
the gangling young in trainers, cons and tarts.
The widow with her so much more than mite.

Robert Nisbet

If you have any comments on this poem, Robert Nisbet would be pleased to hear from you.