Days Now

Days now, I have noticed my beard

keeps growing as they say a cadaver’s does.

Days, as I wait for my wife to die,

I feel the stubble, and with wet eye,

not so much for myself alone

as for her and her friends who love her, sorrow.

Connsider her champion student, Qi,

whose name in Chinese means, Life Force.

My poor wife, after weeks of vomiting,

said: I feel like I have no Qi.

And she didn’t because they were far apart,

soon to be farther, in another way.

And it seemed to me profoundly sad,

to be without her great friend and Life Force.

I felt very sorry for both,

my beard still growing.