GLOSSED-OVER
Those
pictures in albums
They weren’t really me,
just the way someone
wanted me to be.
Glossed-over memories.
A staged pose, a smile.
Pictures of normalcy
caught for a while.
Lies don’t show in photos.
Lives caught in chaos.
FINDING THE ID
“On a scale of 1 to 10…”
a monotone voice
swirled around me
at 2:00 am ER stint.
Pain doing crunches,
In-out-in-out
Within left breast;
EKG wired.
Beeping echoes.
Sleeve squeezing.
Tiny aspirin.
Nursed by proxy.
Doctor by the book.
Cheery line –
“Your heart is fine.”
2 days later
cancer stared me in the face
in morning’s mirror check;
talons gripping my breast,
deeply, deeply
like January’s icicles
sharpened by winter’s shriek.
Friday the 13th –
Diagnosis –
An iconoclasm of life,
Inflammatory Breast Cancer.
And as survival marched into place,
with one foot after another,
Stepping over cracks,
I joined the front lines.
