Tape adheres to my right arm.
I sit across from the clinic
deliberating over coffee and scone.
Good thoughts, friends, diet and exercise
can’t save me from an errant
thyroid, rebellious prostate gland,
defiant glucose numbers.
Days will pass, results
will swirl with other data.
I will pick through the flotsam
and try to decide
what must be
done.
(No. 96 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)