Doing the joint over

It was down to bone on bone

they said, but he shouldered on

as each year ground on the year before

until much to do was hard to reach

so he succumbed to the surgeon’s cut,

the incisive smile of an opening through which

to power-tool out the burnt-out roach

and get a fix on a nice new joint, easy as

dropping a reconditioned gearbox

into a revamped old Mustang,

having done the town, burnt some rubber

got the girl, and settled down.