Suppose the end came suddenly.
No physical exam, diagnostics, therapies, alternatives.
No time to get affairs ordered.
You leave for work one morning, labels visible, or implied,
not planning, or expecting, your stars to collide with that runaway tire.
And instead of, “Honey, what’s for dinner?”
It’s all over the evening news.
You know these run-ins with destiny happen, but not to you.
You hail from a long line of centenarians.
You have all the time in the world
to find your sacred self.
So you keep stuffing more stuff between you and you.
Those high definition boxed sets mesmerize you for nights on end.
You call it entertainment, but it’s just another device
to keep you from examining the life
you let others create for you.
The distractions (the retro cocktails, the friends you hide behind,
the immaterials) work until they don’t anymore.
The day is coming, or maybe it will be an evening,
and when it does,
whose job will it be to empty
your closets?
