I lay down on the couch- my mother
eating plain toast because she
lost the jelly.

My father, of course, couldn’t find
the jelly. My mother told him he was
rude when he says he couldn’t find
it.

Music from the apartment upstairs
filters down; it sounds like whale songs.

The music has no edges and
the song itself has a blurred quality.
It is dissipating the anxiety in me-
the doctor says I have about
six months to live.

I’ve had 40 years to live
and what has come of it?

Well, I do have a host of friends,
good relationships with family,
and a whole bunch of phones
and computers!

When I walk in my room,
it’s like I’m walking on the bridge
of Star Trek’s ship.

But besides the blinking lights
and the whale music that appears
to be omnipresent in this apartment,
filtering down from upstairs,
there’s little else
but a sadness like a half-written
sentence and no writer to complete it.