Sickness is like an

irritating old friend:

you don’t want it

but inevitably

you listen to

its same tiring story.

 

Sickness comes at strange times,

at odd hours,

knocking at the door;

and you say, emphatically,

“It can’t be you again!”

 

And, like this old friend,

it doesn’t seem to matter

where you’ve been

or what you’ve achieved.

Sickness still visits you

and treats you

like nothing has changed.

 

In the visit of Sickness you are reminded

of life’s one great certainty:

that you have a body open

to the decay of the world,

vulnerable,

alone,

a material thing,

fleeting,

temporal,

mortal,

waiting for

another knock at the door.

 

16-5-2010