New Sheets

New Sheets
by Hal Sirowitz

I won’t be around forever, Mother said.
One day I’m going to die, so I might
as well nag you a little bit more,
while I have the chance. And when
I’m dead you’ll have to rely on someone else
to tell you that it’s time to change the sheets,
& I hope for your sake, that it won’t
be your wife, because she’s going to get
tired of doing it, & she’ll start to demand that you
& her sleep on separate beds, which will mean
that pretty soon you’ll have to be using separate silverware,
so she won’t always have to be the one to wash them.
And before you know it, she’ll want you
to live in your own house so you
won’t be able to mess up hers, & divorce is more likely
to happen when you aren’t living together.