My mother called today,
wants to pay for her funeral
in advance “so you boys don’t have
to worry about it.”
But I’m not sure how
one does that, who do you pay?
After all, she may live
another fifteen years, so I say
just write me a check, you can trust me,
twenty thousand ought to cover it.
Been a long time
since I’ve heard her laugh so hard.
Michael Estabrook is a recently retired baby boomer child-of-the-sixties poet freed finally after working forty years for “The Man” and sometimes “The Woman.” No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms. Now he’s able to devote serious time to making better poems when he’s not, of course, trying to satisfy his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.
A Quiet Courage 