Just put down another biography,
Followed a life as it unfolded itself
Through the obstacle course of events;
Jail time, best sellers, and bottle battles,
The multiple marriages, spurned children.
I walked along this river’s remembered banks,
Traced the flow over white, rapid years,
And yet it always ends identically;
Face pressed up against the ward’s cold wall,
Holed up in the hospital you’ll never leave,
Hearing the strip-light flutter and spit,
People shifting scaffholding outside,
The lukewarm food untouched on steel platters,
Digesting the iced fruit of pure knowledge.
