Past sixty, I’m too rushed to think. My brain
each day constructs a wall of squares. Each chore
slides in its square flush as a dresser drawer.
Mow grass, caulk tile, sort laundry, scrub a stain,
pay bills. By dusk, I watch the sunset drain,
the dark that fills it, then I shut the door—
Where’s the remote? Asleep by ten, I snore
below a room where duct-taped crates contain
like tombs junk of a past I’ve ghosted. Hence,
I might forget how luck, some cosmic whim,
brings house, car, comforts; standing gray and round
before the mirror, I could fail to sense
how a vast sweeping wave I could not swim
washed me ashore alive, while others drowned.