Cancer Update Number 12 via YouTube

He speaks of Kali maa, goddess of time
while chemo and radiation pin him to the clock.

As if confessing to a thievery of time,
when they neared one hundred years,

my parents said they never expected to live so long.
Their time unfolded like a painted fan.

Einstein was wrong, you know. Time is not an illusion.
Our watches testify: Each moment destroys another moment.

Time is real. A measuring stick
of progression-free survival.

A wildness of cells in my son’s body.
Ticking.

I pause the video mid-sentence.
In the kitchen, the refrigerator hums.

The dogs bark at a someone passing by.
Pressing replay, I re-form the minutes.

Hours escape like steam from grandmother’s kettle
and wait like stars in daylight to return in the long dark.