The Last Day

Not enough to assume,
as I once did,
that my last day will come
sometime in the future;

that my chest, already spasming
from something (never mind what
as I don’t want to know), will seize up
and collapse and I will die sooner

rather than later; ignore
the mounting evidence of pains
and aches and loss of function
in my legs and arms

that suggest to me that
I will go later, much later; at least
I hope so — don’t want to spend years
lingering on, pissing and shitting

myself in a bed where the nurses
and aids condescend to me
and coddle me. No. I’d much rather go

soon, in a snap; perhaps in a car on
a highway somewhere near home;
perhaps in bed, alone, undiscovered
for hours or maybe on the floor

of a coffee house, walking away from
the counter after paying my tab.
I could go almost anywhere, I think,
if I held fast to my being and then

let it go its way — memory
having its place as my head
opened up a trickle and then
gushed forth with everything,

everything left over inside
falling out onto a surface, left over
to be sorted out; all the lovely
and puzzling things sorted out.

No one will understand it still.
I won’t care as much then.
Things won’t stop. It will be spring
and then summer; you know the drill

and whatever else it is — sorrow,
wistful thinking, anger, acceptance —
there will be rain and sunshine
and heat and bloody daffodils

and all that. I will
not care then. I will
be gone
into the heart of it.

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