Suits

Four grey haired men stand together,
looking like ageing gangsters,
in their black suits and longs coats.
They silently smoke in the doorway
of the cheapest bar in town,
seventy nine pence vodka and mixer,
pints for a pound fifty.
They enter the final stages of a sombre day.

They are at that age
when friends and acquaintances die
with an ominous consistency,
as a generation fades out.

Black suits become a uniform
and gather the scents of the day,
polished wood, cigarette smoke,
and an eye-watering widows perfume.
One day soon each of these men will take his turn
to put on that black suit for the final time,
and like those before them,
a glass will be raised to their name
at the cheapest bar in town.