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.