--for John Caperton

                After years of putting it off, someone dies,
                leaves you some money…thinking
                of the wife, the kids you’ve acquired
                after years of putting it off
                you make an appointment
                and one night a couple of agents
                show up and sit you down
                and begin to ask questions
                across the kitchen table
                like whether you smoke, to which
                you lie and say ‘no,’ and then
                if you drink and how much
                and, picturing a past
                of 100 proof southern skies
                and endless debaucheries
                beyond any form of honest
                or redemptive presentation,
                you say ‘socially, and 'sometimes at bars,
                but never alone’ and ‘never blacked out
                or had the shakes or anything like that,’
                which they seem to like, because
                they smile at you, at each other,
                then ask more questions like…‘How's
                your family history…diabetes? Cancer?
                Heart disease?’ Now, the whole time
                you’re talking, they‘re crunching
                numbers into a calculator,
                and after about ten or eleven
                more questions, they suddenly stop
                smiling and tell you rather flatly
                flashing the digital l.e.d. read-out
                for emphasis, just how much longer
                they expect you’ll be living and exactly
                what your life is worth in terms of dollars.

Copyright  Jefferson Adams, 2003.  All Rights Reserved.