When I can no longer bend my body

far enough to wipe the residual shit away

and have no hose-hooked-shower-head

to bidet off the little dangling dingleberries

stuck to my anus hairs,

comes the memory of Willie A,

my college-dorm swamp-mate,

his voice echoing in my brain,

yelling at my roommate,

“Damn, Man! Clean your ass, Joe!”

Joe passed about fifteen years back,

too young,

if one can be too young to die.

I wonder if his ass was clean

when he flushed for the last time.

He died suddenly, you see,

of some quirky intestinal infection.

He was a lawyer by then.

His law partners raging at his funeral,

talking taking some legal action,

“Nail those medical bastards!”

But the bigger the shit, the less the wipe

and maybe he was ready to go.

But if he couldn’t clean-up

everything

before…

maybe,

after,

there’s an outhouse outside,

hard by the pearly gates,

air conditioned, berber carpet,

with a roll of silk toilet cloth

where we sinners get a last chance

to wipe our sin-stains away,

mercy and justice granting us

one last swipe at forgiveness.