Life – A Sentence
By Ron. Lavalette
He’s almost an hour early
for hemo/oncology, waits
with a coffee and the other
early arrivals, watching
the white coats come and go,
counting the turns of the lab’s
revolving door, and attempting
to calculate the likelihood
that his particular marble
will fall on either red or black,
odd or even, hoping that
for hemo/oncology, waits
with a coffee and the other
early arrivals, watching
the white coats come and go,
counting the turns of the lab’s
revolving door, and attempting
to calculate the likelihood
that his particular marble
will fall on either red or black,
odd or even, hoping that
when he’s finally released
it will still be Spring
and he can smile, having
hit the jackpot once again;
can stop one more time
at the bookstore’s café
for a second cup of coffee
and a couple of macaroons;
can bask in all the tentative
reassurances that modern medicine
can offer to an iffy, aging scribe.
Ron. Lavalette lives on the Canadian border in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, land of the fur-bearing lake trout and the bilingual stop sign. His first chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. His poetry and short prose have appeared extensively in journals, reviews, and anthologies ranging alphabetically from Able Muse and the Anthology of New England Poets through the World Haiku Review. A reasonable sample of his published work can be viewed at EGGS OVER TOKYO: https://eggsovertokyo.blogspot.com