One moment you're tenaciously checking pulses
chopping carrots and tomatoes and measuring
Spoonfuls of syrups and splitting pills and counting
Capsules to prove your sister-in-law skipped a dose

And you sign the cards and you lick the envelopes
And you write the checks and do your math and
You dream of France in the summertime after falling
Asleep in front of the TV at 9pm on a Friday night.

There are dishes to wash and shelves to dust full
of five lifetimes of bric-a-brack amassed and leaks
To mend - so much that really matters enough to keep from
Breathing too slowly or speaking of the implications

The next moment it's all vanished and there's one less
Complication but at what point do you cry and at what
Point do you relax after cathartic loss as ineluctable loss
and when is it exactly that it hits you if ever

That some day the complication is you and the vanishing
Provides a blank check to forget and an invitation to
Dance around the vacuum of absence