Comfortable

What is it that comforts me

Through the grim and the bleak?

I’ll tell you the answer,

Though you may find it weak:

Days without clouds

That leave my brittle bones be

Arthritis untouched

When I’m lucky, for weeks;

The whooshing and whirring

While machines clean our sheets

Or wash faded white dishes

Of scraps of food it meets;

The car coming to a halt

At the end of our street

Up the tree-lined drive

Without so much as a peep;

A fridge stuffed so full

Old, rickety, and meek,

That when I shut its doors

The rusty hinges creak.

Ask me again,

What’s the difference

Between comfort, security, relief?

I’ll simply shrug

And then go back to sleep.