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Life Insurance
Here
at approximately 7:00 in the am
at the dining table,
having pulled another all-nighter,
braced and inspired by the indefatigable
Johnnie Walker,
I’m eating a couple of eggs over easy,
sobering up
before retiring,
just as the sun begins his day.
As I do this, I glance at
the current pile of my wife’s mail,
directly across from me,
suddenly grateful that I’m not
now just rising
to the horrible edict of an alarm clock,
only to think up new reasons why
all of us should apply
for yet another credit card,
or how we might be enticed
to purchase more
life insurance.
In fact, I just received, a few days ago,
a very special offer from my
old alma mater,
for men 50 or older
—AlumniTerm—
(I guess I should expect to get buried
by these, for a while).
Well, even if I dropped dead
today,
it’s been a hell of a fight—
most of it uninsured.
I’ve won a few and lost many more
than that,
as most of us have,
but this morning I realize
I can at least be thankful
that I won’t be driving to some
ugly gray bunker,
especially, say, for the purpose of
conning the aged
(and the hook is always love,
strangely enough)
into sending me a substantial chunk
of whatever money they have managed
to earn keep
take
throughout a lifetime of earning keeping
or taking,
because in that case
I would be even closer to dead
than I am now,
or already there.
Scott Blackwell is a former resident of San Francisco and a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute (1997). He has most recently had poetry published in Tiger’s Eye, Caveat Lector, The Stray Branch, Iodine Poetry Journal and Tribeca Poetry Review.
He currently resides in Champaign, Illinois.
Email: Scott Blackwell
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