My mom emailed me with results of my stepdad’s exam. He has metastatic bone cancer, there is some lung and lymph node involvement as well. I don’t know more than that she simply emailed me the medical report strait from the doctor.
Drawing to a Close | OctPoWriMo Day 29
Your death took a long time
Too long, all things being relative.
Dying seems so Zen in the movies
But all that was ever borne
From your cracked lips was agony.
I’ve no idea where you went
When the moment finally came
Or even what you believed in
(if you’d ever considered such things).
–
I wasn’t even there when it happened
But I know it wasn’t beautiful
A man’s suffering never is and a man’s tears
Are always heart-breaking for they are never
Spilled carelessly but come from a well
So deep as to be seldom retrievable.
It was my mother who decided,
Who stole the umbilicus from
Your surrendering frame.
–
There’s no shame in asking to die
For you were so riddled with disease,
With sufferings inconceivable in nature.
Our hospitals are filled with corpses,
Empty folds of flesh and bones
Like barbed-wire fences, wrapped
Ferociously around an invisible tenet.
It ought to be considered murder
To stitch the soul into an empty sack
And leave it trapped there
Beyond any justifiable definition of mercy.
*
This was written about a step uncle who died of multiple types of cancer. My mom took care of him in her home until he needed to go into hospital. She told me the pain never stopped, he just screamed and screamed.
Nightbird
My prayers hang from the sickle
Of an unjust moon, dread being
Silent I no longer know to what
End I should attach my hope
I was not ready for the nightfall
But there was no way I could
Condemn you to remain on
The verge of departure
=
I can only cry when
Gripping both hands
Upright. How do you
Pronounce goodbye
When a plea for mercy
Sounds like a summons
For murder?
=
My eyes sink starless into an
Unwashed canvas, eclipsed
By cheekbones that grow in
Famine. My smile no longer
Connects to the flow of blood
But hangs on loosely like a
Partially severed limb. I wear
It in defense against those
Who would commiserate
=
I can only cry when
Gripping both hands
Upright. How do you
Pronounce goodbye
When a plea for mercy
Sounds like a summons
For murder?
=
The darkness has arrived
In the embrace of those
We loved, but there is no
Consoling a loneliness
That can only be appeased
By the one newly departed
=
The days we shared are unclear
Now, cobwebs lace my dreams
In the strands of light between
The woman that I knew flickers
Sphinx-like behind my vision, the
Photographs are still, reticent in
Their wooden frames I can no
Replay accurately their depictions
=
Only my heart holds the shapeless,
Indestructible essence of my love and
Here deep inside this sighing vessel you
Nest, a nocturnal bird given to lullaby
=
I chose Stevie Nick’s “Nightbird” as a child I doubt I understood the lyrics and even if I had a dim impression it would be years before I saw cancer. My step-fathers family has a heavy genetic predisposition for cancer, now in his 80s (he is 28 years older than my mom) he’s seen every one of his siblings battle and in all but one case succumb not to just one type of cancer but to multiple types simultaneously. I have lived with the dying. As an adult I still love Stevie Nicks but this song now has a much deeper meaning for me. I wrote a poem as I am not remotely musical.
mindlovemisery 