investment

Their wealth,
such as it was,
shall not be inherited.
Older, weaker and
poorer they grow,
as resources gathered
through the sweat-faced toil
of decades
are exhausted,
spent on care
delivered by caregivers
less than caring.
Only then are they,
spent and exhausted themselves,
allowed to slip into eternity
penniless,
having enriched no one,
preserved nothing,
and saved, perhaps,
not even their own souls.