ISSUE: Spring 2011
I’m stiff as a board, bored stiff
with living like this, with this
being half-crippled and adrift
like the ancients in the hospice.
Do you admire this, our sacrifice?
Well, don’t. Age is a day at the office.
*
I won’t have to eat. I’ll be eaten
by bugs and by burrowing insects.
Will they have a surprise planned
for me? They’re friends
of mine and wait in their restaurant.
*
Every day of life is a disappointment
because it ends with black.
Of all such commonplaces, no event
is more certain or exact.
Each living day ends with a sunset
and calling it twilight won’t change that fact.
*
Death grows bored with me.
And I, vice versa, with death.
She doesn’t understand what I write.
I little (because I’m alive)
comprehend what she says, nor do I respect
her resemblance to the grandmother of a friend.
