-circle back-

cancer roamed the lungs

probing its victim beneath the still-
wrapped bed of the hospital

dropping-off its tacky prognosis

showing-up in the khaki-colored
tincture of the skin,— eye-white

slipping beneath the surface.

I looked into the face of this place.

It would have been peculiar
had he some money to leave me.
but walking from the bedside
through the uniforms
and machines of the corridor, a friend
accompanying me on the visit
opined:  “he’s had it.”

I thought:  “that’s right. he’s done for.”

back then I didn’t write anything down.

so he pops-up occasionally now in some poems,

sometimes about his ending, like this one here,

sometimes of his after-living experiences

and what might be going on as I see it.

those I like best have him on the road selling booze

and like a child with a cardboard cut-out doll,

I dress him up for the ride.

others have him alongside his young wife

inside the tenement,— the house,— the interior life

activated like releasing the taut spring of a mechanism.

but the wealth of what's left to me
are things such as these,—

the rarity within the normal,— the irresistible
everyday experience of everything there was,—
so I write it down
and I don’t complain about the money.