last week i asked out loud, why is it that i keep writing about cancer?
when i don’t understand something, i sometimes write a poem or two. then i let it sit, and some time afterwards, it’s possible that the world makes a little more sense to me.
so i wrote these three little poems.
they’re sad.
but then life is, too, sometimes.
she called and she said
“oh by the way
i went to the doctor.”
and i, i heard nothing more
only my voice droning inside, screaming,
“no! no! no! not another one!”
“it’s not malign,” she said
“but we need to watch it.”
***
she makes cabbage rolls like before,
and i think even still tortellini soup,
her hair has started to grow again
and she jokes and tells stories like she used to.
inside, a dragon that roars all day and all night.
fierce warfare with chemical weapons.
***
can’t get that image out of my head,
a month before the other one threw himself
over the railing by the tall bridge
and all they found on him
was my phone number.
a month before, we were at the church,
there was a coffin,
the coffin where i almost saw her,
dangling her feet, grinning her big smile,
her lion’s curls wild by her
eyes always full of glint, even in sorrow, even
on her deathbed when she said,
you’ll see me sitting on the coffin,
laughing, waving at you.
beautiful, beautiful woman who
decided to leave peacefully,
no red poison in her veins,
just letting those strange cells
grow all over her
like morning glories.