"The cancer wrapped around her larynx
Strangling her to death"
Anything I say would only hurt
Sweetie fills our cups with fresh black
Coffee for the tenth time with nothing
To add but a smile.
I light one of his cigarettes and
He empties ten million packets of sugar
Substitute into his cup

I am silent
Staring at the salt shaker
Imagining how death comes
It is cold and alien
A fragile being caught inexplicably in this
Instant of life I so tightly grasp

Salt shakers and the fake wooden tables
He talks about cancer as if it were everywhere
It swims in the bottom of the coffee cups
Beneath our feet in the ugly aqua green carpet
Flaked by orange triangles and diamonds

It watches us from a bench outside
Out by the empty road
Beneath the lonesome streetlights