Does he note the jingle of receding keys?
(He could snap the bars of this ageing heart
with his little finger.)
Sometimes when my mind is quiet
I hear him singing the anthems he taught me:
'Be valiant, be strong, resist the pow'r of sin!'
that sort of stuff. He doesn't think I hear;
he sings to himself, the way I used to do
when I was his grateful prisoner.
Some mornings on the coast road, queuing in traffic,
I wind the window down, and watch the furling waves,
and listen to the surf and seabirds' cries,
and sing with him.