Very Last Drop

Ever squeeze the last drop of toothpaste
hard enough that your fingers hurt
just to half fill the tooth brush
but the teeth came clean as ever?

Tomorrow there'll just be no more,
so you drop the crinkled tube in the can
subconsciously anticipating the next day's new tube
and the abundance of paste at the end of the brush.

Ever squeeze the last note out of a dry throat
with hardly a note left and aching,
aching not just there in the throat
but in the soul since everything givable was given?

There's nothing more to say, and nothing to do
but let the whole dizzy mess rest a spell.
A single sabbath day will suffice
to render that instrument above the heart anew.

Ever just teach until there is nothing left to say,
storing nothing except the knowledge of
gratitude for being used by the only Employer
where the employee IS the business?

Somehow the lesson is new each morning
since the morning breath begins with a simple
here-i-am prayer echoing like a bleating sheep
out from an epic's calendar of days.

Ever just want to die as someone dies before you
or lives but you can't watch
because you are elsewhere called
so you just brush your teeth and go to bed?

© Copyright 1999, Douglas Decicco, 181 Dogwood Lane, South Windsor, CT - This poem may be duplicated and distributed freely provided the following three restrictions are adhered to during the duplication and distribution of said poem, regardless of the number of recursive duplications or distributions made:
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