DEATH BY INSTALMENTS

In infancy he guzzled milk
from a warm-blooded demijohn.
With famished cries he called for more
until the demijohn was sore
and prayed the guzzler would be gone
like snaking ice or laddered silk.

At ten he tried his father's gin
and lost control of knees and hips,
dispiriting his parent quite.
The son stood up to his full height
and said, 'You are a craven dips-
o, I'll be burdened by your sin.'

This threat was proved in one decade.
He'd grown dependent on his drink
and - wine or ale - he didn't care
providing alcohol was there.
From now the man began to sink
into a slough - and there he stayed.

By thirty, liver necrotised,
blood vessels hardening by degrees,
he wobbled down his lifeline, sunk
beneath the kilolitres drunk.
In vain he tried by will to seize
a lifespan he'd economised.

You'd say by forty he was old.
In pubs he'd sing a quavering song
in hopes he'd win a drink; they'd cheer
and buy him half a pint of beer;
he'd smile, 'I'll always sing along
if they will buy me Labatt's Gold.'

He barely made his fiftieth year.
Ammonia-reeking, ever pissed,
newspapers next his skin, he kept
a vigil in the park or slept
in drunken snatches through a mist
of wine, regrets and numbing fear.

Delirium tremens was the gift
his sixtieth birthday brought to him.
A demijohn of meths he sucked
before the undertakers tucked
him in a box and nailed the rim:
they found the coffin light to lift.