the immunotherapy it seems is not working
the CT scan results had some "big brain words" as my dad called them
he showed me his phone
not looking too closely at the words as he passed it my way
he's smart enough and so am I
"residual/recurrent tumor"
"enlarged"
"narrowing of the luminal space"
we know what this means

the tumor grows still
squeezing that space where food wants to go
making the tube
that protrudes
from his waist so necessary

brown slop full of minerals and vitamins and calories
poured into the tube by his loved ones
so vulnerable
so bare as he lifts his shirt to be fed
by a daughter 50 years younger than he

his skin so dry and sagging
once inflated by muscle and a bit of fat
now clings to his bones

the skin is pink around the tube
and wet
raw where the tape is ripped up 4 times a day
we keep a bandage there
it hurts when he showers and he flinches if I accidentally jostle it while inserting the syringe

to make your aging, dying, thinning father flinch
is a pain I want no one to know
but how many countless women have cared for their aging fathers
in this way?

I didn't ask to be a nurse

Since he showed me the damning results
black letters on a white screen
I've avoided him
I don't want to talk about it
What other option is there?

Maybe the drug administrators at John Hopkins
will think of something new
Maybe he can go back on the other immunotherapy
my mother seems to think was working best.

I can picture the tumor
so resilient and pink
ripe with blood vessels
new thick flesh
cuddled there inside the esophagus
gatekeeping saliva
from entering the stomach
so he has to spit it back up
walks around all day with a little cup for the saliva he cannot swallow
food he can't swallow
and because he refuses to chew and spit out delicious foods as I've suggested we do together
he doesn't even taste
the only thing he tastes
is burps
that rise with chemical gusto to push through the tumor's gates
"that stuff is nasty"
he says with emphasis
"hardly people food"
he says with disgust
Now I mix his goo with strawberry or banana smoothie
to make the suffering a bit less
hoping he isn't assaulted with nasty burps from the goo
that entered his stomach
through the tube

I see how death roils around you
How it looms and tickles your space
How its tendrils hang around you like
The reapers cloak on a wind

In the night your demons come to dream with me
I don’t know why they come
But they show me the way they have filled you
For so long
How they have lived in your husk
And now that husk is not so habitable
Now that husk doesn’t have the energy to sustain them
They can’t feed from you how they once did
Now that you can’t feed yourself
Now that you must be fed
Through a tube from the hands of your wife
So on their way out
Your demons, your company, the spirits you’ve channeled for many many years
Come to your daughter
To reveal themselves in the night

One so sick and strange
So small with oily hair mother never took the time to wash
A forsaken child beaming at the attention I give her
To lift her from your body and put her in your bed
I listen to her sounds and animations
And she goes into a soft sleep

Another so bold and mean
Large and angry
Cold and resounding and sure
This beast was inside you all these years
Shape shifting you to yell at your babies
In a booming voice
With out kindness or remorse

Who will I meet next?
Who will leave you next?
Will I meet the last when you are on your death bed?
Or will they leave you and then by some miracle your body will start to work?

Who are you without them?
Do you know?

Today, my mom and I obsessed over my kitten's beauty:
"she's so precious"
"mirala come se pone asi"
"a work of art"
"her eyes are BEAUTIFUL"
"un modelo"
"preciosa"
resounding in the air around her
as she tore at the rug by the door with sharp claws
motivated by each word of praise wafting around her.
Then I said:
"I think she could have been a show cat, but her personality won't allow it"
and then mom got busy with her breakfast
and I had some space for my thoughts
Sometimes, when I notice something new about my cat
I wonder what this new knowledge
Can tell me about myself.
I think I am just the same as her
I could have been a show girl, a show something, a trophy wife, or by now a print model getting botox to fend off the aging that tugs on my laugh lines
But my personality, won't allow it.
Too sensitive, too knowing for that 'could have been' that's not for me.
Too disregulating to my nervous system to be beautiful and voiceless.
Again, again, again, again
Thousands of times in this mind I contemplate myself
As if I am constantly being beheld by a thousand eyes who will judge my value as a thing of beauty
Will that ever end?
I don't think so and I suppose it's something to accept.
That's being a woman in this life isn't it?
Being a cat, always beheld.
Or who cares if it's being a woman or a cat.
It's a distinct part of my psyche to be beheld.
Just like it's an integral part of my cats life to be beheld and praised as she tears up a vintage rug.

I used to confess
Confess myself all the time
Confessing parts of my personality
Disowning myself
While playing the martyr to my flaws

I don’t do this anymore
Suddenly
After years of work on my inner walls
I hear my no’s and yes’s clearly
I respond to them shortly thereafter
And I no longer  confess
That I’m very sensitive
That I have a past with trauma and pain
That I have unique needs

Part of this is knowing I’m not alone
We’re all sensitive
We all have pain
We all have unique needs

My favorite poets
Are the ones who don’t know it
The pedestrian texts
From people who love
Who’s love has made them artists

My little Christmas cactus is growing
A lovely slime mold
And my dads cancer is spreading
From his esophagus to his lung
I guess that’s the way of life
To grow
But the slime mold will coexist
And make the Christmas cactus happy
The cancer won’t coexist
Won’t make his body happy
It will eat up the life
He forfeits
And he still won’t call his grandson
Who so badly wants to hear from him
His grandson, a 19 year old, fully formed, passionate gift from the universe
In his late age
And he won’t call him
It’s prolonged and prolonged
It goes on and on
The breaks from treatment
Only make the cancer worse
And make the treatment worse the next time around
He refuses to stretch and get a massage
Refuses to let his muscles
Be coaxed into relaxation
But who can blame him
Everything *****
His body has turned on him
No vices linger near to take the edge off
Poor darling who is anything but a darling
Spewing vitriol
Seething disdain
Or silent
A small smile of something like escape when a bright red cardinal flits by
Free

Lately I’ve been letting my hair grow
My leg hair has caused me consistent unrest in my life
Shaving and plucking and waxing only for it to bristle again 30 minutes later
Coming in dark on my pale skin
Sharp and tough as cactus spears
So I’m letting it grow
And wearing shorts
I went to a friends house with my hairy legs and he was shocked
He wondered out loud “you go out like that?”
That time around my grown out leg hair only lasted a month
I wonder how long this phase will last
Maybe I’ll never shave it again
Wouldn’t that be easy?

I feel the same about a wild lawn
Of uncut grass
Growing in thickets and patches
Different species and colors and lengths
Catching the light
Being divine
Maybe my leg hair can be like this

I emerge from the dock barefoot in a t shirt
And find my sister talking to neighbors
They’re wearing shoes with their hair done
I wonder how wild I look
Not as wild as I am

They’re teachers too
My bare hairy legs reveal
That I’m a feminist
She clocked the legs and didn’t have to
Take a moment to let it sink in
As my friend from college did when I went thrifting with her last week
She started at them and then quieted herself
But this lovely woman in hot pink
Gave me her approval
She said I’ll be okay teaching
I can handle myself she said
I’m a feminist

Reactions from women
About my hairy legs
Are becoming
So fun