Bargain

The doctor’s visits stop,
just an occasional nurse stands vigil,      
but I’ve been planning my escapes,  
made my secret pacts since boyhood  
bargains to abstain from the whims of time and pain.  
These looks on your faces, weak with grief and anticipation  
frighten me. Please leave.
I’ve done nothing to deserve this.  
I recalculate the deals. This mistake just can’t be real.       
       
Does the mind lose itself in age        
or does it become too much more        
of its own world      
for experience        
to justify?        
       
This is how I will remain. This is how I choose,    
lost, locked in that same backroad cabin of the mind    
I’ve been building on for years.    
Poetry grows there, a fir tree by the door    
where you and where death can never follow.