Saturday night:
the cat padding past the bed,
each footfall near noiseless, then
leaps onto the bed; a brief bit
of unwelcome clawing at the spread,
followed by curling up for sleep.

I lie awake a long time
counting all the medications I took
with a sigh. Thinking of everything
I didn’t do today, thinking of everything
I can’t do anymore. Wondering
what the cat thinks as she falls asleep.
Wondering when I will fall asleep,
and finally doing so.

Waking up: the cat leaps down
yelling for me to get up
and feed her. I stumble out
and do so; take my morning meds
with a sigh; measure my pressure
and sugar; dress, make coffee,
pour myself a cup, sit down,
listen to the radio.

Listen to the radio and think about
what I have to do today. Listen
to the radio and think about
what the people are saying: a man talks
about having lupus, a woman talks
about losing a boy to heroin.

The cat sprawls in my lap,
I scratch the cat, I listen to
the radio. Sundays
are like this. Tales of random grief
by strangers, disembodied strangers;
my own sighs thinking about them
while the cat
sleeps through them oblivious
and happy.

Goodbye, I tell
myself. Goodbye,
I tell them.

I turn the radio off
to start this day
of dreading the intrusion
of the real world into
my version of it — quiet,
uncomplicated, punctuated
by a cat snoring softly,
each of us peaceful for once,
for a precious few minutes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

With music on a radio
which is on a bookcase
which is in a living room
which is in an apartment
on a hilly street in a city
in a country on a planet
in a galaxy
in a universe
that is more or less
empty

worried
for my own recovery
from a stroke
from a second stroke
from a third stroke
from a tumor
within my chest
from glaucoma
within my eyes
from chronic weight imbalances
from aging
from embracing an end
from falling into
empty

worried
for my own recovery
from depression
from guilt
from sadness multiplied by guilt
from rage disguised as
empty

knowing there is
another world
out there
another world only
a razor blade away
another world only
a fistful of pills away
another world only
this one will be
empty

I have not been this
empty
before
Never seen my way so clear
Never seen my way so perfectly
lined against a ocean
neither stormy nor calm
I am neither stormy nor calm
myself
I am resigned
I will have resigned
from a job
I did not ask for
from a career
that tugged me and nudged me this way and that
from a life
as full of joy and pain as this one has brought me
from this life
of opposing forces
I surrender to
one final
hearing of this song
one final
toe tap imperfectly rendered
one final
nodding ragged and timely to its rhythm
I shut the radio down after uttering
in English
an imperfect rendering
of Nunc Dimittis
after looking it up
and getting it
still uncertainly enough
with no confidence that I got it right
much as my heart looses its last load
into me and
becomes
empty

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Listening to old music,
wearing old clothes, thinking
old thoughts…enveloped in
a sort of sorrow that’s more like
dread, more like the flowers
on the orchid that have been
outrageous for weeks, show no sign
of fading and falling but
you expect them to go soon;

you are surprised
to find yourself licking your lips
knowing you’ll go outside soon
to the disasters that await —
the unfamiliar car, the new horror times
with your mother and sister,
the long, knuckle-driving drag
back and forth;

listening to old music, your old
clothes, your old thoughts —
but this, right now, is good, is nice;
is only troubled by anticipation
of dealing when you don’t want to
and can’t really; still, you hum along
and sing where you remember the words
and pick at your clothes, thinking
of how you will change them soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Opposed to the river
as it meanders through
Worcester before going south
to the sea; disregarding the passage
I stay focused on the downstrokes
of the paddle, smooth
through the water; I begrudge
the earth that has put me here
in this place, in this time.

What the Blackstone does
is wander south. All I do
is sit and wonder
where I could be
that would reward me
for going anywhere except
south, to the sea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Libraries and museums
hold scraps of death and life
brought into them by living souls
and left to them by the dead.

I sit with this for a long time.
Weakening rays of sunlight
come in at a slant and fail,
one by one, along these long halls.

Stepping out at the end of the day.
I wonder: which relics tell which story
better; which stories are of life,
which of death?

Relics don’t tell their stories easily but
I turn on my heel and leave them to burn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Me and the cat,
the cat and me,
I and the cat,
the cat and I
wait in front of the television
for things to happen.
You can put us in any order
you like; we will wait together
like this for fifteen minutes
or five hours; I’ll wait for
the hammer to fall, she will wait
for food or treats or perhaps
nothing at all. Lucky being
that she is, she waits for
whatever comes. I wait for
things I know are coming
and that I fear. Two things,
three things; my own death,
two more, maybe ten or more;
maybe hers will hit me hard,
maybe harder than the others would.
I do not know. I do know
mine would bother her; she’d meow
louder than normal, become listless,
lost in her own miasma
of not understanding it.
I won’t understand it either. Instead
I try to predict the upcoming news
and events, such as they can be.
Of course I’ll get it mostly right,
a few of the important things wrong.
It’s the way of things.
It will not matter if I got it right
once it happens. The cat and me,
me and the cat, I and the cat,
the cat and I will be calm
in the occurrence,
no matter how it’s framed,
no matter how it seems to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T