He’s gone, and all our plans

Are useless indeed.

                                    Ivor Gurney

Long sprawling days

skimming literary journals

not literature. Weak tea,

a scintilla of alcohol

poisoning, short

naps roused by my

own snores. No checks

of my immobile. It’s

a kind of wisdom taking

over, somehow. No more

clinicians, no more groups,

no workshops, no walks,

just a sort of murmur;

there’s always something

going on in the background,

the heater, the refrigerator.

There’s no tenor

in this newborn wisdom,

only the humming vehicle.

The gestalt has become

all ground. Figure has

slipped under the porch door

like a cartoon mouse

without so much as a sigh.