Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Soul

What is the net present value of a sunset

when viewed through the window of a hospice wing?

The discount rate of the afternoon is steep.

We trade the long-term projections of “someday”

for the immediate liquidity of a hand held tight.

There is no insurance for the loss of a language,

no federal grant to rebuild the city of a person

once the storm surge of the cells has crossed the levee.

We are left with the social capital of grief—

the way the neighbors bring casseroles like sandbags,

trying to hold back a tide that has already

rewritten the map of the living room.