One doesn’t need terminal cancer
to consider mortality at Costco.
Will I live long enough to finish
this twin pack of mustard? A bargain
for sixty ounces at $6.49.
How many condiments will I consume
in my remaining time on this earth?
Something to calculate, standing
in an aisle full of jumbo sizes.
At 65, I could have twenty more years,
even thirty—or as few as ten.
I’m descending the mountain now,
not climbing it. The biggest stretch
behind, not ahead.
And the knowledge is as pungent
as the mustard seed ground with spices
I spread on a sandwich every now and then.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String (winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press), and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. For more information visit www.jacquelinejules.com.
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