Eulogy for Heather Fishwick

She was the kindest willowy white witch
you could ever hope to meet.
W/ her St.John's Wort, soya milk,
lentils for supper & lentils for dessert,
pureed tofu when she pushed out the boat.
A book called Foods That Heal
in her kitchen 
& a larder of antidepressants
on her shelf:
Heather Fishwick was allergic to life.
That does not surprise us
who knew you what a 
willowy white sweetheart you were
& how life treats its finest.

Your PDSA-rescued, schitzy
labrador called Mitzy
died soon after you.
Did that dog's sensitive soul
set its own custard coat setose,
pining l/ a golden porcupine,
fur on end w/ fear
as it sat at your geisha feet
that X-mas you overdosed?

& I was ungrateful, childishly,
churlishly resentful
because I was in my early 20's
& liked you & used you,
but did not really want you.
& you were a decade older,
but not a decade stronger.
I later heard you had found 
some happiness w/ a boozy
builder by the name of Steve. 
Or so I believed...

We lost contact, I guess I had left
the unforgivable impression 
that I hadn't really valued 
the many times you indefatigably
shared your last blim of soapbar
w/ me, street-value 
of 8 billion zillion squid
on any street of heart. 

Our last routine pleasantries,
vague dope favours asked of a faded
friendship, haunt me, Heather.
Because you saved my life
for what it's worth.
Sometimes it was only worth a blim,
sometimes it still is,
blim of soapbar you shared,
skint stickthin stoner
St.Heather.

A little dope when there's no hope
can be a life-saver.
A small life-or-death favour 
can be a Lice-saver when all hope has been
scucking fuppered.

& PDSA-schitzy Mitzy,
daft people-damaged dog 
barked the house down,
had to be locked in the bog
when Lice the Leech
too loudly knocked
to bum a blim of salvation.

& Heather, you yourself 
could not keep quiet about
how your dad kept so quiet about
his 1950s lodgings at Mendips
making Fishwick & finger pies
w/ John Lennon's Aunt Mimi.

Talking of dropping names,
you're buried in Colney Woodland Park,
where another formative old mucker 
I took for granted, disappointed, 
has been lain
- Heather, Hussein. Hussein, Heather.
Maybe your ghosts could unearth
my good points if the pair of you
put your ghostssamer grey matter,
your incorporeal IQs, 
your Casper-the-Friendly-Cogitos together
 - you've got Eternity to rehabilitate
memories of me, tho' you might need
more time. Or have better things to do, 
even dead.
I've aready wasted a lifetime
on the sly narcissism of mea culpas. 
Well I remember the time

in 2001 (just after we had sectioned my mum,
& I was crashing 
on my younger sister's floor in Lakenham),
sibliving had become fraught. So, 
as can be my poète maudit histrionic wont
- I guilttripped said sis, Pasha-Jade,
& blusteringly bluffed
I was off to sleep rough, 
w/ an ostentatiously
mothscoffed blanket & my trusty stuffed
gorilla, Oscar Wild sans an 'e', 
under an arm each. 
& it would have served you right, Pash,
if whilst I invited lumbago
doss-dozing on Castle Meadow slabs,
a tramp had used my toothbrush!
Instead I headed to Heather's,
a willowy white witch
surrogate big sis,
who 'gamme shelter' 
as Glimmer Twin One might sing in the past tense, 
homely repose
on a wicker two-seater w/ hippy throws.
Plus a soapbar sploofta cosh to quash
alpha brainwaves when the nightbrain
gives Hieronymus Bosch 
a run for his guilders.

Tho' your dad took her in, 
schitzy Mitzy died soon after you,
Heather, of a grief-growling, 
orphaned hound-heart.
But I wonder if for once Mitz 
had been a mute mutt,
a deathly hushed doggy, 
pining l/ Greyfriars Bobby,
till Boxing Day when they discovered your body?

St.John's Wort, Seroxat,
a lightbox for your S.A.D.
A camomile welcome,
last blim and sympathy.
Years since your suicide,
even more years since our friendship died,
but might I one last time cadge of you,
Heather Fishwick,
this time your forgiveness
for my immature silybum obliviousness
to the blessed milkthistle 
of your superhuman kindness? 
Heather Fishwick was allergic to life, 
& in that there is no justice & little sense, 
because she was a human antihistamine
against its brutishness.