the worth of my time

the lawyer looking into my case

charged me up-front then calculated

the cost to me of his time spent on the job.

well, okay.

but 40 years later I got to thinking:

what’s the worth of my time?

how would I calculate the worth of my time?

who would I send the bill to?

nearly everyone I know is dead, or dying,

or have gravitated to asylums or distant lands.

but leaving that aside for now, what is

the worth of my time?

I don’t do much but write poems.

I work at making them sound good.

It’s not laborious, I don’t sweat through them, and

I’ve never felt that at the end of the day I could use a stiff drink.

but to do poems is time-consuming.

I could be doing something else, as you know.

maybe a drive through the countryside, looking

at cows and daydreaming of milkmaids.

or going to the Historical Society in town to see

crime-scene pics of the axe-hacked Bordens.

but after so many viewings, it becomes commonplace.

(you see a couple of axe-hacked bodies once and you’ve seen them all)

I suppose.

but what is the worth of my time for rotating out of bed?

Is my time worth more if the facilities run dry?

well, I suppose no one knows nor should they know.

after all. it's my time.

now,–– about those milkmaids…