Today, you’re looking at your hands.

You’re thinking time has made a mistake

and those palms are far too rough and course

for someone your age.

Yet you remember the uncle

who fell and never got back up.

That’s not you.

At least, not yet.

You’re always fending off an attack, you say.

Or are in need of hammer and nails.

There’s work to be done –

on a bookcase

and maybe even on your frontal lobes.

You do your share of pacing.

You’ve had it with people who are

always threatening to shoot.

You’re concerned by all the books you’re not reading.

And your job – what you call shoveling shit.

Yesterday, a friend took sick.

He’ll be in hospital for a month.

You don’t care much for your neighbors

but you respect their differences.

You miss your wife.

And your sanity is not fully engaged

with what’s happening in your head.

You prefer your dark room of sleep

to most company.

And you see the Earth as an ark,

floating through space,

constantly ditching the ones

who can no longer pay their way.

You stand in the doorway,

feel the draft of the world’s grief.

And yet there’s still

this small persistent heat.

John Grey

(Image by CJA)