revision

POA

Old yellow folder, flour

tortilla soft, spine and edge

gilt with velvet whisker

laden as a honey bee leg

with stinging missives

gloved in yawning pockets

Veterans Administration boilerplate

market tested gloss and gauze

The Cloisters At The Lake Of The Pines

The Abbots On Tarry ‘Ere Twilight Meadow

strychnine tang of Medicaid guidelines

flinch of a sleepy Living Will

thrust blinking into limelight.

Plain as a Shaker’s bonnet

sized to fit notes for a Rotary

speech or bittersweet poems

that toe the ledge below the wall

we’ve hugged ever so long

but not so long as Lincoln

coloring outside the lines

of his cramped death bed.

Durable Power of Attorney

sprawls, showing a bit of leg

tattoo of your shaky signature

enough blanket to turn perfect

hospital corners with plenty

left over to gather at your chin

witness every breath, cadence

a deep well, words on the page

receding faster than I can read them.