Flickering

Your only strategy now,
Given what decades taught you
Of all that’s gone before you,

Is to remain small and not
Move much and hope to survive
Some days, months, few years longer.

Life is a child who won’t go
To bed quietly, whining
For just a little minute

Longer and then another
Minute after that, although
Even life will, at some point,

Give in without knowing it,
And slump down, out like a light.