No Simple Thing

Not having as yet learned how to live— indecision skittering like a dust devil across appetite’s parking lot—the time has come to learn how to die. First I’ll put away my clothes, return my books to their shelves; then I’ll raise the blinds, to see what’s happening on the street and which birds are forming their flocks, since I think it will be fall with the trees nearly bare, except for clusters of leaves clinging to the oaks. Does it matter that I’ve never learned to sleep on my back? Soon I’ll have plenty of time to practice. Like people standing in line waiting for a train, I’ll check my watch against a clock on the wall, touch the ticket tucked in my breast pocket. Don’t accuse me of morbidity. Actuarial tables have quickened their work against me. Oh, it’s no simple thing to practice for death and I’ve yet to reach the subject of goodbyes. Will I have time to speak to the people I love, to press hand or stroke a cheek? Then each might need to make some remark, maybe even an ironic gesture, nothing too somber as could complicate a rational occasion. Better, I think, to slip out across the driveway to where a car is waiting, its motor making the softest hum. As often occurs the cat will escort me part way and I’ll bend to scratch his ears, as he stretches to let me scratch his neck as well. I don’t know what birds will be left, I don’t know if it will be sunny or dark. Pausing, I’ll pat my pockets to see if I’ve got my keys, and then smile at my mistake. No time now for whatever remains undone, no time for regrets or good thoughts, not time perhaps— and this is hard to imagine—even to shut my eyes. Yes, this practicing for death is no simple thing— look at how I open my hand and once or twice flick my wrist so a bit of fluff or loose thread stuck to my fingers can at last float away.