A poem while I wait to get started on some stuff.

You never know when it’s coming
so the whole venture becomes a matter
of counting whichever unit of time you fix on

After a while, it’s hard to care
whether or not anything has happened—
you will get paid one way or another
because whatever it is is what it is
especially since you’ve spent all that time counting

The bad-habit wasteland
has become a permanent home

When all the penalties
come out of the years you’ll spend in decline
there’s not much point to clean living anymore

Style is almost beside the point:
What goes better with tubes and IVs—
stripes? plaids? tasteful nightwear?

Formal wear is wasted on oxygen
when only the night nurses are around to watch
you get no chance to show off the tails

So you see now what I mean by the wait

By the time I get what I’ve been waiting for
the neighbors will be complaining
that I haven’t mowed the lawn in months—

and I don’t even live there yet

(22 May 2018)