Time — over time
the body slips

away — nothing
is ever what

it is supposed
to be, illness

as metaphor.
As if without

fanfare, slowly,
in increments,

we lose the ones
we love. And we

lose ourselves. Death,
with the softest

of hellos, an
old friend we have

never met, drops
by one day for

a coffee and
conversation.

The body, the
body fails, at

last disappears
— yet we keep on

talking. A light
streams across the

table, its cups,
saucers and spoons,

these the remains
of a good life.