Today, just as easily as yesterday
or even tomorrow, and who really
knows what sort of cosmic change
one more trip up the stairs, a minute
or so involved in finding a set of keys
can bring? I do not claim any bit of
godly eye into the possible futures
much less the remiss and distress
of the concreteness of the past

No

Even so I can tell you this:

Today I ran over a wedding gown
in the middle lane of a local interstate
and just as I was getting over the shock
and twist of so much crinoline, so much
taffeta, catching a breath and wondering
what it could mean: what looked to be
a golf ball bounced twice in front of me
then bashed around under me and
any hope of spying it in my rear view
was dashed completely

I was trying to listen to an NPR show
about the human mind and death and
what we think we can tolerate in the end
is exactly what we cling to, if only
to not end

I was reminded of my mother's slow
and lingering death (painful, thoughtless
absurd) and how many lives end that way
not at all what we plan to endure with
the pleas to please **** me when it comes
to that and not a minute more, absent
of all dignity which we think in our
last lucid moments is important;
which we think in our last lucid
moments is more important than
diapers or mumbling or *******
ourselves

And not a single one of us knows
when we will give in, what little
moment will mark the beginning
of the end- a golf ball, a wedding  
dress, a wolf passing by our bathroom
window as we take a midnight ****

That could be enough, that could be
the undoing, a small grunt and a passing
fact, like you- passing, fact, past tense
just a glint in a lonesome wolf's eye
as you cross over from wanting to live
to wanting to die