Expiration Date
I check a package of cheese
for the date it will no longer
be edible, no longer a source
of sustenance for me, my family.
An offer for life insurance
comes in the mail, cheap rates,
they say, for anyone
of a certain age. (Anyone close
to their own expiration date.)
I wonder what life would be like
if we had a stamp
broadcasting the date
for the body’s expiration,
the day it becomes
an inanimate object, the day
of cashing in on that policy,
cashing out on survival.
About the Author: Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Review, The Literary Nest, Rat’s Ass Review, As It Ought To Be, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, One Art, The Loch Raven Review, Panoply, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best New Poets nominee. Her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
Image Credit: Clara Peeters “A stack of cheese on a pewter platter, with butter on a plate, a stoneware jug, bread, pretzels, wine in a façon-de-Venise glass and a knife, on a ledge” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 