The Human Touch

I bear flowers
A harvest of roses
Daisies, lantana
Each visit I bring more

 

My last offering
Ravaged

By the burning sun
The deer

The slicing lawn mower
Rattling

"For-get, for-get, for-get"

 

The graves recede into a flat field
Only a few stubbornly sprout
Remembrances

 

Fragile flowers
A balloon, a pinwheel
A note, a glass of water
An unripe persimmon
To rot, to be swept away

 

But each day devoted hands

Bring more

Quiet proofs

Love is stronger

Than Death

 

The Trip

 

My husband’s secretary sent me pink carnations

And a card bewailing “this damned disease”

The flowers stand in a vase on the mantel

Pink, backgrounded by a stiff fern

 

Yesterday I received a chemotherapy treatment

Cytoxin and novantron shoot through my veins

Bathe my tissues, secret into the marrow of my bones

My son tells me to imagine myself in a healing purple cloud

 

Stretched on the couch, I have an acrid invalid’ smell

The silence of the house enfolds me

I sleep deeply

I dream of packing, of travel

Of my son begging me “Please don’t go”