Expiration Date

There's a Dutch movie where the main
character announces to everyone: this 

is the day she is going to die.
She lies down without a fuss

in her own bed, untroubled, 
certain of what will happen.

Perhaps she is done with all
the negotiations, all the upkeep

that life requires of her— done
with farming and raising children,

done with chasing and refusing
sex, patching up quarrels, standing

up to injustice, stretching a pay-
check, bulking up a meal. Done

too with the Sunday suppers in 
the garden, the long, earnest 

conversations with friends deep 
into the night. But how did she know, 

how does anyone know? It's not like you're 
given a ticket or schedule, a station or 

terminal. It's not like a clock on the mantel 
that you can hear winding down. But some insist 

you will know when it's time— perhaps 
when the floating world grows even more 

transparent, every bubble brightening 
imperceptibly just as it starts to dissolve.