for Sandi
I’m in a Zoom meeting where eight state employees
are reading line by line and deciding
where the policy should say
“local and regional plans”
and where it must read
“local or regional plans” — which is hilarious
if you know that we only have local areas
and so could only have local plans.
We will spend hours and hours
debating every phrase,
making it crystal clear
and When the local boards meet
they will think they need to make a regional plan
on account of all these references
to regional plans.
It’s an understatement to say
I don’t give a fuck.
Either the “s” in “state plan” should be capitalized
or we should burn it in hell.
Either way ’s fine by me.
I’ve realized I’m inside one of the stories
I’d tell you during our weekly calls
which would make you laugh , and remind you
how much you love retirement
and how little you’ve miss this shit.
Except now you’re dying
and you are both above this pedantry
and keenly aware of the beauty
in every damned prepasition.
A microphone is left unmuted
and we all here someone making dinner plans.
This is the highlight of my afternoon.
I wonder how many ways
I can obscure this reality –
if the passive voice can actually blunt
the brutality
of your impending death.
Maybe if I attempt to continue
to live simultaneous to your dying
or You proceed to expire as
I refrain from doing so,
I could possibly hurt a little less.
Perhaps If I insist upon persisting
in a State of sustained aliveness
While you have commensed the process of ceasing
to occupy tangible space
within this particular existence
maybe I can get through this Zoom
without bursting into tears.
Cancer edits yor life
striking through whole paragraphs
with a fat red pen
while I move commas
around a flickering screen.
The next step after every meeting
is always another meeting
but when You die,
we’ll have no more meetings.
then how the hell will I know
what the next step
could possibly be?