Two worlds

It's all too over complicated,
like
three pages of TV channels in the Radio Times.
He remembers a simpler time.
Nobody is taking cheques anymore.
Touch-screen check in at the doctor's.
The lady at the library
has been replaced with a machine.
Where is all the paper?
The girls who come in often,
(it seems like every day) they talk about
who texted who
did you get that app
I watched it on catch-up
while they billow sheets and
pop gum and
tap at little flat screens with
gem-stuck fingernails.
They talk about Facebook
oh my god did you see her status?
as if she put that photo up
she doesn't even know how to use hashtags.
They speak in another language,
of technology, and phones.
He picks at his jumper,
is that soup?
Maybe mashed potato.
What did he have for tea?
This jumper is clean on.
The girls say, why don't you put some new clothes on
change it up a bit?
But he tells them he bathes and dresses in fresh clothes every morning.
They look at each other,
but don't believe him,
conspiratorial smiles.
He doesn't need them - he doesn't know when they started coming.
They whirl out in a cloud of
counter-top perfume samples,
see you tomorrow they say,
but they must have got it wrong.
The house is still.
Nothing moves outside.
The cul-de-sac is an open mouth,
looking up to the clouds,
quiet; a simple smile stunned into silence.
Just the clocks ticking now.