This week I’m sleeping soundly through the night.
I rise to see the toilet water’s clear!
It’s been at least two decades since that sight,
but lately I’m so weary that I’d fear
it as a symptom of morbidity,
except I have good reasons for fatigue –
my mother edges toward mortality,
while lies and virus hit us like blitzkrieg.

The world in which I grew has sorry-changed –
its every benefit is in decline.
The values valued young have been deranged;
I take to bracing nerves and resting spine.
But now I’ll stand and turn away from wreck,
to sweep two days of leaf fall off my deck.