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

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.

9 9