First the catheter, slimmest filament,
slid in by expert hands
The next needle delivers
a pillowy somnolence
your russet-furred rabbit face falling
gently into my cradling palm
Then the final dose,
doctor calculated for your now boney, bunny frame
Just beyond the parking lot,
my husband chases
our daughter through
the trails of the Rouge Valley,
as they await a break between
my cases—to visit the “hopstipal”
where she was born, where
I still work on weekends.
I catch the train home after a night shift
my tired eyes take in the harbor view
a child chirps announcements in my ear
sweet mimicry doors closing please stand clear
last night a woman died or tried at least
her heart a panicked quivering
R said when he heard the words
aggressive prostate cancer,
he heard location, containment, intruder
confined within hard boundaries,
not parsing each loaded syllable
as its own explosive detail
capable of spreading.
Like a rose
The nurse says
Of this new, unexpected opening into my body,
Fastening the pouch with expert hands
Deep red
Inside out
My hands tremble as I empty my
lunch of meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Rendered brown murky liquid
Into
My mother doesn’t think she’s dying,
but she’s in the ER for the third time
in less than three months while
I’m 2,500 miles away on an island
in the middle of the sea, my sister
sitting with our shrinking mother
Everyone is nice to me. First night
through morphine I hear nurses saying
they’ll keep me on the surgical floor,
refuse to send me to the cancer unit.
They know I’m healthy, rich with lifeblood–
why view the damage this disease could do?
This morning a volcano
turned back into a neck,
simply a neck.
Decades after a tiny
muscle knot had wandered
or was pushed up
under the skull’s tight base,
this morning it emerged,
brimming with thanks.
When you were days from
Dying
In that hospital bed
A woman came to talk to me
I knew that drill
I recognized the soft approach
The plants that curve into the bay window in the parlor
Drop their leaves to the scuffed wooden floor of this old house
When they no longer hold life.
There they dry and crumble
Scattering dust and debris across the soft pine,
Clinging to my
Avalanche dream—heavy breakage of trees, boulders ripped from
their footings. Chunks of ice bouncing past as the swirling white
mass picks up speed. I’m running running running but can’t stay
ahead of it. Lungs burn, tears stream from the effort, the strain.
Glazed in sweat, I
She did not slice the bandage snugged about the numb toe
but tickled an end open to begin the unwinding. She
unwound the gauze slowly as she turned her head
to see where the cloth stuck to itself and how to cut it.
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