Without Appointment



There was no announcement

hardly a sound, a foot-scruff

on the steps to the clinic,

a slow walk, more delay

and no surprises.



Neither broadside nor listings

give date or time, fashionably late

for the spoon to drop

to the floor with a loud

Clang like a tin gong.



A door flung open

to a morning of strange sentences

mushed into vacant syllables

Da-da abbing, abba dobbing

over their own cadence.



Nothing is circled

on this calendar;

not the day her knees buckled,

the wild sounds in moan

or bone beat on thunder drum.



No one was on hand to introduce

the slump thing in the wheelchair,

with an RSVP that was never sent.

Forgive us for barging in this way

our fixed gaze as through marbled eye.



Forgive us for being late, as usual.

Forgive us our sudden intrusion,

our insubordination, our guileless moon.

There, where there is matted grass,

our bewildered bare feet went,

Without Appointment (fr. Stewards of Mortality)

©Red Slider, 2002, 2006 all rights reserved.

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