autopsy report came in today
showed I’d been dead for ten years

I’d had a good relationship
with the primary MD
we’d talked about my future but
he never mentioned I’d died

all those trips to his office, dead
more than one hundred fifty drives over the bridge
to his building
the one with the view of the Golden Gates

ten years dead
about the time it took to
finish the novel
master the art of photographing birds in flight
learn Russian
exhibit my abstract “Work in Progress” painting

never mind,
I can stop worrying now

what do doctors know, anyway?