Justness

There comes a point in life—
in everyone’s life sooner or later
(mine arrived straight after viewing
the second Batman movie)—
that we feel the pressing need,
even if we don’t give voice to said need,
to add the prefix “just” to everything:
it was just a film, just a… I don’t know…
just a love or a life or a loss
and I fully expect one day
to be lying in bed, supine—
likely a hospital or hospice bed
or a gurney in some corridor—
and saying to my daughter,
“It’s okay, pet, it’s just death,
nothing to get in a tizzy about,”
not that my daughter is
given to tizziness but
a man can dream.
Maybe just this once.