(Thanatophobia)
       

If you should die before you wake,
you just might make it; as it is,
each moment is your last.

"No man is indispensable"
is the philosophy of your employer
engraved on the cigar cutter from your wife.

You gather your briar, your meerschaum
around you in bed
and murmur of the long vigil ahead.

Huddling in your flesh as if in a stole,
you stroke it like a dilettante
and consider the black holes
your body's been
when you' re gone,
how the simple joy
that once was a persimmon
will soon belong to another.

You know the crows
that flock to clutter the dawn
are nothing without your admiration.

What morning will you rise
to face an empty mirror?

Tweet

Copyright © 2020 Karl Elder All rights reserved
from Phobophobia
Cyberwit.net
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission