Stuck - Shifting



You said "Left".
I thought you meant my left.
You meant your left.

It fell on my toe.

You said "Right".
I thought you meant your right.
This time you meant my right.

It fell on your shoulder.
Nice that you were thinking of me though.

No, don't answer that, it will be your mum
and she'll say something like
"you can learn a lot about a man
by the way he moves a heavy item of furniture for you"

and you'll have to tell her that you are moving it
not for me
but WITH me
and holding
your end up
and she'll say "hasn't he got mates for that?"
and you'll say "I'm his mate"
and your mum will sigh
loudly
on the phone
so I can hear her too

You look at me and you don't answer it and I love you and we smile
before bending down again
to continue to heft our lumpy old relationship round corners and up stairs,
hoping to get through the twisty bits
by putting it on one end
and wiggling inch by inch,
hoping we never have to saw it in half.

And bits of stuffing fall out
and old treasures glint from dark crevices
and the whole thing needs a deep clean really
but what can you do?

It's us, it's old and we got it in Ikea in the middle of a blazing row.
That's where things start sometimes.

And if we get stuck we'll have
a cup of tea
and a laugh
and start again at a different angle

and we'll get it up these bloody stairs

and we'll park it in the sunshine if it's the last thing we do.

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