Eventide. Three small pills and a cup

Of water are all that hold a mind

Grown unruly, and yet knowing

My soul sinks inevitably down

Into what my wife would call a one.

The dark cloud will come to stay

For a season. It will stay

Despite the ritual of pills and a cup

And the system my wife has, from one

Which is too low, to five where my mind

Soars into the red before the next down.

I may have a month of balance, knowing

This is all the normalcy we have – knowing

I cannot ask my wife to stay

Forever, with a husband so up and down.

Our joke is that the picture on the cup

Is Daffy Duck, and this is one

Piece of truth, for Daffy has his five and one

Episodes as well. Still, there is no knowing

If the balance of my mood and mind

Will improve, or simply stay

A lurching ritual of the cup

And pills, and the endless up and down

Scored by my wife’s numbers -marked down

For me to manage. I fear the one

The most, when the pills and the cup

Seem no use. Two is the harbinger, knowing

That the clear times seem to stay

Less and less. Five arrives galloping on a mind

Bent on excess and zeal, never mind

The unbearable grandeur, worse than the down

That is sure to come. I seem to stay

In constant flux, or as one

Blown on a wind, always knowing

I am tied to numbers, three pills and a cup.
I long for a mind that for one time

Is nailed down and knowing

It can stay independent of any cup.