Penultimate Offices

Still able, pre-op, to prep yourself

you sponge your thinning skin as though with precious oils.

Cypress, cedarwood, frankincense.

A solitary sacrament.

Curtained behind a synthetic shroud

you stretch to wash beneath each arm, shoulder, breast.

Rub thighs, calves.

One foot, the other.

In this rite for skin swaddling a body

that carried five to term, skied and sailed and swam, descended canyons 

and climbed back out…—once more

you are fully present.

With yourself. Complete. Finally

gowned, you wrest a breath of sterile air and steel yourself 

for the next reveal.

The chalice of your body—

bathed in a sheen of grace—

reappears from behind that blind, swirling a bouquet of quietus before 

bowing to the world not unlike

a mysterious glass of wine.