Creatures gather in the courtyard at sundown
Armed with stethoscopes and pills

The infirm clad in a costume gown
Laid bare among the land without hills

Guided only by the melodies
Of the beast with the blinking eyes
And piercing tones

Healing begins

In the cancer museum
I imagine where mine
would rest in peace and ease.

My eyes scan rows of organs:
Disney’s lungs on top of
Newman’s own **** pair;

Ingrid Bergman’s left breast
bump Bette Davis’ right—
indiscreet voyagers;

Audrey Hepburn’s colon
nesting Farrah Fawcett’s
like Tiffany Angels.

I saw my spot next to…
but the doctor called me
back to look at the scans.

He pointed out my growths
grouped in a triangle,
told me of their plan/cure-

called them clouds but they seemed
caterpillars vegging
out on my intestines.

I imagined them cocooning,
metamorphosing to
surgical butterflies

or staying just rounders,
yellow earrings just for
Audrey’s and Farrah’s lobes.

Then the doctor turned it
and the picture became
more terrible things:

rats, sharks, wasps all vying
for valuable shelf space
in the small gallery.

Tourists and soldiers from
the plane crash/war museum
wander in wondering

why there are no jet planes
reassembling in slow
motion horror, dog tags

melted into the seats,
flesh in the torn engines,
no screams of real terror,

just the crowd bumping and
marching into me in silence,
sometimes taking pictures

while **** yellow chemo
solution runs down my
leg in pupae slime lines.  

The last one opens me,
looking for spikes of grief
or fury.  Finding none,

not even a cold tomb,
just a rip, tear, dim sounds
as the crowd echoes down

and surges out the door
for all the Holocaust
store souvenirs next door.

I hear my heart rustle
in the computer bytes,
the breath of trees

and swallows in my files,
a dusty cross inside
releasing butterflies

to the sky as I step
back and watch all
****** into the blue.

“Do you think I got it
all in?” the doctor says,
snapping my last picture

I have to sew my memories
inside the lining of my coat
to keep them close but not inside,

something to take on and off
when cold grief needs warm reflection
or remembrances flash painfully bright,

when chemo and radiation
makes it difficult to feel my teeth,
tie my shoes, retrieve the hem of a future

through the barbed-wire fence of past life,
the cancer, the bad brother that shoves me
through, leaving me bloodied and betrayed

but safer in the ways of nothingness,
the death of my bawling infant self
that I just begin to fathom.

I lack the humility to pray for less,
just close my eyes and find kindness
for the coats I sew for others in the dark.

What keeps me holding onto my old self,
preventing me from casting it into past swells?

Something detested, adored, hymned too,
haunted, cancer ridden, inflamed, grieving

and torn- yet beloved, pulled forward
into an ocean of tomorrow and tomorrow’s

swimming to hope or drowning in hopelessness,
never knowing where my forgiveness exists

or where my identity will be marooned,
my crueler self will  beach

and be rescued or
die in the unlit sun.

The hospital gown they gave me
is the same one with clouds
my mother and friend once wore,
a hand me down filled
with the aura of grief and hope,
of time and death.

My name and date of birth
are the only thing the nurses ask
as I am led to the mold
in a treatment room
filled with a halogen haze
and an all encompassing white-
almost a verisimilitude of heaven-
pulled and pushed to the mean
that is marked in black on my body,
strapped in and slid to the center.

The  mechanical eye
revolves around me three times,
a trinity of hope, despair, life,
as I listen to bagpipes humming around,
the brightness forcing my eyes closed,
the wave tingling as it passes underneath.

I am connected to the past
by the fear of death,
separated through
the hope of cure,
knowing that I won’t
die in the gown of my mother
or with a four inch hole on my back
like my friend.

The eye whirls slowly around
one more time, then stops,
barely ten minutes passing
in an eternity of thoughts.

The nurses offer me curved arms
that lift me up, allow me
to swing my legs over
and touch the floor,
my backside exposed,
as I raise myself up
and walk away, death dates
of loved ones haunting my brain,
seeing only the ashes of clouds
of myself and others around me.

What's this inside of me?
Tell me when did I agree
to become a host for something
attacking my temple, my body.
Chastened by my lack of breath
trembling like a nervous wreck,
this feeling is not who I am,
bombarding my simple abilities,
trapped, I really cannot see.

Reflections of life flying past,
anticipate that my memory lasts,
that I won't simply disappear
collecting my thought, all my fears,
while wiping away poisoned tears,

Somberly fighting against
the trembling of my lip,
as I listen to the slow
tranquil, cisplatin drip...
falling are poisoned tears
as I float on out of here,
so low at holding on,
not always feeling so strong,
yet I'm not ready to glide,
help me, find a place to hide,
my will to stay is being denied.

He knelt at the side of her bed
Like a throne or alter
His mind full of hope or surrender
Even he didn't know which it was

He held her hand
Told her he couldn't understand
What she was going through
That he didn't know what would happen

But he told her he'd be there
He'd be her comfort and all her courage
She would see him in her dreams
He would never leave

He swore it like a Knightly oath
With his hand over his heart
He told her tomorrow was uncertain
But today would last forever

And so she never died
She lived forever in that moment
Like a Queen with her fervent strength
A Goddess with her humble tears

She lived eternally within his promise

Blood of poison heart of gold
you were only ten years old
when the gates of heaven opened
the clouds above wept

You left through the celling
in the night time-
with eyes wide open

Mama,

I'm just a little girl.

You make me happier than anything else

With the books that you read me

The smiles you give me

The warmth of your body

As I sit on your lap

My downy blonde head

Rested, listening to the heartbeat

That lulled me to sleep

In your womb.

You tell me,

"Madison,

You are my sunshine."

You're mine, too

So I bring you

Pictures I drew

Purple weeds that I picked from the yard

Smiles

Flashing love, optimism

With my crooked baby teeth.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm not a little girl.

I like boys

And have opinions

And bleed

Just about every month now.

I roll my eyes

And speak my mind

And disagree.

I want to read those few books

You don't think that I'm ready to read.

I make you cry now

Almost as often as I make you laugh.

I remind you of the sharp, dangerous bits

Of your own adolescence

With all the added danger

Of my Daddy's set ways.

I'm sorry, Mama

I am.

I can only become a woman

In the ways that you teach me.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

You know I'm your girl.

I might have Daddy's face and sense of humor

But it's you and I

Talking about our respective friends

As we work in the kitchen

You on the main course

Me on dessert.

We laugh

And sing along to Courtney Love's mad howls

No matter how much everyone else winces in response.

Let me tell you a secret, Mama:

I don't want to grow up anymore.

I feel safe here

Always at home

As long as I'm with you.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm still just a little girl.

It scares me to death

To see you hurt

When there's nothing I can do

To ease your pain.

Part of me wants to do

What you did for me:

Tuck you into bed

With a hug

A kiss

A ginger ale.

"Sleep tight

Night-night

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Sweet dreams

Love you

See you tomorrow."

I want to **** this ******* cancer

Eradicate it

From you

And every man, woman, and child

Who's ever fallen

Into its hideous grip.

I don't want to ever have to leave your side, Mama,

Wouldn't do it

For anything in this world.

I'm sorry

For any nasty thing

I could have ever said to you.

I'm sorry

If the stresses

Of a single moment

Or years' worth of them

Ever stole a little bit of joy

From you and I.  

I love you, Mama

I always will.


I'll do anything

If it means we can take each other's hands

And kick this thing's ***.