Page 9 - 2019 October Listen - 13-4.pdf
P. 9

MORBIDITY DEFICIT




         At the milestone of eighty                            and death vanishes.

         I should “serious up,”                                I’m meditating on my funeral and suddenly,

         have death always before my eyes.                     before the final “departure prayers”

         I don’t.                                              are intoned,

         It hides from me, like my cell phone                  which might be good for me to hear,

         under a kitchen towel on the sink                     I imagine the strains of “How Can I Keep from


         or in the pocket of my navy-blue sweater              Singing?”

         hung hours ago in the closet.                         (my request)

         I tell myself “Shape up!                              tingling the chapel’s stained-glass.

         Sand is pouring through your hourglass                And I start humming and fetch my banjo

         and almost gone!”                                     to see if I still can strum the chords.

         But then I glance outside                             Darn.  One string needs adjusting.  There!

         at a cardinal alighting on a snow-frosted limb,       If the Angel of Death comes just now,


         note interesting shadows                              maybe she’ll join me and add some percussion,

         on the gleaming yard—                                 tapping a wooden spoon against my coffee mug.

         Oh! That one looks like a giraffe!—
























                                                                 Patricia Schnap is  a Sister of Mercy, and a Professor Emerita
                                                              from Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI. Her poetry has been
                                                               published in Review for Religious, Leaven, America, and Christi-
                                                                                                  anity and Literature.




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