Talking to My Mother About Death

 

It was not on my schedule

To talk with my mother about mortality

In the middle of the afternoon,

Over coffee on a gray day.

 

It was not on my to-do list,

Some of which is so overdue

That I should move it to a never-to-do list

And never think of it again.

 

But we both felt like coffee,

And we both like to talk,

And we have mortality in common,

As so many of the best people do;

 

And I can think of worse ways

To pass an hour of a finite life

Than sitting with the one who brought you into it

And gossiping about its end.