Coil

Figured I had time left;

Doesn’t everyone, it seems.

Thought I could be deliberate.

Consider options, at least.

Then they gave me the news.

Told me to get my affairs in order.

Square away messes I made—

The shambles my life had become.

At first, I was devastated.

Who, on this unsteady earth,

Wouldn’t feel the floor drop,

Fathoms below their feet?

I envisioned a future, without one.

A black hole, like my dad warned,

And nobody knows where he ended up.

Guess I’ll simply pass my days—

Or what remains of them.

Try to discover new hobbies.

Study a few foreign languages,

Should different tongues be spoken

In any place that will have me,

After I cast off this coil.

Yet, I’m prepared to meet my Maker,

If such a Supreme Being exists.

Give him a piece of my mind.

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Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.