I guess you could say that’s what I’m doing…

Counting down to my lift-off.

I think that tumble I took last week

was just another peek at it.

Another look was that simultaneous

attack of vertigo and panic,

two weeks prior.

And the real recent fright was that

“little stumble” flight I took

over a rug beneath my desk-chair,

turning into a double and a half,

front-forward-gainer

-over-the-seat,

landing skewed on the other side,

twisted enough to stretch and tare

the ham-string muscles and tendons

behind my right thigh

which, after two months of unanticipated P.T.

restructuring my mobility for a while

will point me further

down the count-down toward

It.

They say this is how the beginning of the end,

ends.

I suppose my 78th year is as good a time,

near enough, anyway, as any,

to begin to end.

Ya gotta start sometime!

Although, ironic as it may seem,

I’m beginning to believe that

conception was the real

beginning of the end of my being….

And, given this days memorial meaning

of a horrid day, 81 years ago,

Hiroshima,

move over!