Full Circle

by Paul Balfe

What an expression:
“He doesn’t suffer fools”
And now I’d met the archetype.
Invincible, or so he thought,
Referred by his doctor for ‘tests’.
An irksome inconvenience,
His failure to attend unsurprising.

There’s no softening the blow
When it comes — except, maybe
At the edges.
I got to know him,
Laid bare,
Over the six months
Before he passed
As he battled with Kubler Ross.
At the end, the very end,
He called for his mother.