Now

Every thing I saved for the future
has frostburn. I have to throw it out.
Of course I'm cleaning
out the freezer, wondering
what or who I keep house for,
why I keep working on my body,
stretch it, deny it salt
and sometimes savor, clean
its teeth, check the skin,
walk it to the doctor to be sure
it reaches tomorrow. Death
seems to be everywhere,
even among the vegetables
I can hardly weed,
tomatoes waiting on the vine
for my hand. They must rot there.
Are the poems permanent
as a porch full of winter squash?
With or without relatives
I have to keep giving everything
my human meanings, write
when I can't see as much, eyes
getting useless as my ears.
And as for my mind!
Oh Melancholy Jacques, shut up!
You begin to sound adolescent again,
filling up with imagined death
and self importance, fourteen
and an idiot. I'm supposed to be wise
by now, standing on the border of age,
but I feel more like a large old tree
the river undercuts, and soon
I'll hit the current.

Judith Bishop