Image source: Unsplash
by Dr. Lloyd Jacobs
Today would have been a perfect day for dying,
death’s territories are already marked.
Somber winter birds and barren trees are praying
for sunlight; the sky is a greened copper kettle
inverted over a country of incessant wind,
a wind always present, penetrating, threatening.
After a while you get to wanting to get on with it.
It’s not like we had no notice, the hospital nurse
called to say the end is near.
But it seems I have no say in the matter;
I’ve been robbed of my volition, the power of my will
I am to slog on a few days more.
Dr. Lloyd Jacobs is President Emeritus of The University of Toledo. He has published 3 collections of poetry and was previously a professor of vascular surgery at the University of Michigan
