My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

The Visitation

There was this tiny, untapped part of my brain,
and one strange night as I lay dreaming, as I
lay fetal and curled and afraid (of the fury of
the woman whose guinea pigs I had allowed
to escape into my nightmare's muddy yard)
a visitor appeared--some sort of angel on
a mission, I believe, to open an unused door
(padlocked, dark) that existed in my head.

She was dressed in a gown of transcendent gold,
a billowing swirl that looked like dawn and was
sewn of insights that explained not a thing
but helped me to see that a life without answers
was fine, just fine. As I lay sleeping on the bed I
had made and unmade for so many years...so many
love affairs, mattress pads and streams of tears–I
watched my guest as she waltzed her way past
my horde of midnight tidal waves, rotten teeth
and forgotten high school locker combinations.
I observed her as she knelt inside my brain, flung
the door wide, allowed a flock of birds to burst
from within what had been a most terrible absence
of light and sky. She wove a spell, and the nightmares
dissolved into a Sunday morning revelation featuring
my beloved singing in the kitchen, and the jingle
of clean spoons being tossed into the universal
wisdom of our incredibly amazing utensil drawer.

Muted

In the twilight zone of our muted television,
we cling to a dinner of boneless chicken thighs,
red skinned potatoes, and fresh green beans.
You tell me about the broken transom line at
the job, how it almost caused Taper Dave to fall
from his ladder, mud pan in hand, and crash
through your client's magnificent picture window
(with its zillion dollar view of the Golden Gate
Bridge). But Taper Dave held on, kept his balance
despite the weight of his sizeable belly, and all
remained intact.

Then I tell you about my typical day of working
at home, my laptop now an integral part of these
ever-widening thighs. I've become a paper-pusher,
resigned to dealing with the eternal whine of repetition
and routine. I don't even need to embroider my story
with the gory details; you've heard them all
so many times before.

I've muted the television so that we can sit together
and eat, free from the roar that arrives each day
through the wires and the waves, bearing the jargon
(softened by scenes of sylvan meadows) dispensed
by pharmaceutical marketeers who sweetly warn us
of all foreseeable side-effects (cancers, suicides,
heart attacks). They bring us the news (rarely if ever
new) of a world that is more than we can handle,
juggle or endure, although we try.

Unknown to us, a close friend's spouse has today
made the choice – perhaps is making it even as we test
each bite in our evening quest for tenderness and solace
– to be taken off his ventilator tomorrow, to acquiesce
to the demands of his fed-up flesh. But we will not learn
of this heroic exit until four full days from now, after
he has already bowed and left the stage. I remember
to tell you that I tried a new recipe for the chicken
we're savoring. I used numerous, thunderous shakes of
Mrs. Dash, that old-fashioned blend of dependable
spices combined with scattered showers of lemon-pepper
and onion powder. I added butter and onions, too,
then wrapped it all in a silvery missile of foil. I
wanted you, as I prepared this meal, to know how
much I still love you, from the depths of my boredom
and the bottom of my beleaguered soul. I wanted
you to feel how I kneel in thanks, day in and
day out, before our dowdy brown evenings
spent (perhaps too often, but even so)
in the glow of Samsung's forty-two-inch screen.

A Contender

Damn it and praise it. Life is piling up so fast. I'm thinking Make the chowder first, cook the fish before you get trapped in the rest. I'm thinking this could be a good day for cleaning house, I could use the new dustpan with its special contraption for trapping fallen hairs that rarely consent to being caught, that float back out to the floor or stay stuck in the broom. But I'm thinking, too, that I could've been a contender.

I've could've been, way back when, way back before I got that bee in my bonnet (about having a child on my own, then braving it alone. My own finely engineered conundrum, no doubt about that. And also no regret, even though I'm now caught up in the bumbling hum of the humdrum -- and past my prime).

I've got russet potatoes, frozen corn, milk and cream and bright white sole. I've got bay leaves and onions, paprika and fresh green thyme. I own a fancy slo-cooker, a hand-held blender. But I could've been a contender. I could've turned it all into iambic pentameter. There's a poetry submission deadline impending, one of many on the horizon. They've been out there all along, but I've ignored them. I could try to catch up today. I could set out on a belated hunt for lyrical choruses and luminosity. I could hunker down into creating enchanting rhythms. I could swim deeper into the surreality of being sixty, of having raised a son who now lives in Berlin, of having spent too much time jabbing needles into my squirming abdomen.

I could labor some more over the latest poem, revising the lines again and again until I've redone my soul a hundred times over. Or I could sweep the grimy floor, stare at a pile of wispy hairs that look like they could have come from the head of the old woman who lived in a shoe, or if not a shoe, a wheelchair at that rundown nursing home in Small Town, USA.

An orderly has pushed her out into the hallway, locked the brakes, and left her there, next to a trash bin and a mop bucket. She's waiting for a nice young teenaged girl to come along, a volunteer who'll wipe the drool off her chin, shape what's left of her coif into pin curls, to be combed out later. She wants to look pretty for her dead husband when he finally arrives and they can share a nice dinner together.

Good Luck with All That

If it's not working now, maybe later, maybe then. Maybe we can count on that. A craving for toast and eggs pops up. Anyone could die tomorrow, right? Luck of the draw. Hit by a bus, a train, whatever. A craving for comfort emerges. So human, so predictable. Tax time can do that to a person. It's those damn numbers. Addition, subtraction. Anybody could die tomorrow, get hit by a bus, a car, or a baseball bat. That's fate. The numbers! Oh my god and the dollars, the astrologers and their starry constellations. It's inevitable, it's statistical. It's the numbers. 8:39 a.m. Stage IV cancer. Wish for luck. It's all about the time you've got left divided by the sum of your bucks. 8:41 a.m. Stage IV cancer and still holding. No wait! Ignore the stats! Lotteries galore. Luck or divine intervention? Can less be better than more? Sure! It's about your time left on earth, divided by the roil of chaos and death. It's a mess. Luck equals personal interpretation of the irrational. You make up a fairytale.

Is there really any difference between plain old luck and fantastical thinking? If I hadn't opened that door when you were sitting in the tree...what then? Luck equals the irrational in collaboration with the magical. Where would we be now, if I hadn't unlocked the lock? You see? Voila! Here we are. If I hadn't opened that door when you were sitting in the tree...what then? We wouldn't have gotten our red-haired terrier, declared our love, moved in together. Where would we be now, if I hadn't turned the knob? But here we are. The circumstances decreed it, the universe arranged it. You can't always expect things to work out, though. Oh no. Luck can be fickle. It's tricky. You can structure your luck if you tell the right story, hatch a plot, get psychic, get smart. If it's not working now, maybe later, maybe then, when the stars all align. Wait for a sign. There has to be a meaning, a purpose to the accident, the forest fire, the crumpled wreck. Right? Just make up a story, give it lots of chutzpah. Will time really tell before the bell tolls? There has to be a meaning, a purpose to wars, to hate, to all of the terribles. Isn't that so? Isn't that right? I don't know.

One Balmy Evening

My friend Steve died one balmy evening
as I was resting after teaching. I had
no idea that he was gone. I went right on
like nothing bad had happened. Wish
I'd known sooner, though I'm not sure why.
What difference would it have made? I clearly

remember the first time we met. He sat with
a blanket drawn up to his chin. Side-by-side
we'd bide our time (in the infusion room,
grappling with our fear). I can't get the picture
of his death bag out of my head. So plastic, so
black. I should be stapling handouts now, I've

got a lot of work piled up. His doctors said
there was nothing more they could do. But he
hadn't given in. I can't get his sweet smile out
of my head. Not a hint of guile. His doctors
gave him six months to live, give or take a few.
No one really knew. He owned a store, sold

salvage decor. I'd poked around in there before.
Never could've guessed I'd someday meet
the owner of the place, especially not like this.
We sat together, infusions flowing, twice a week
at least. We laughed and talked a lot, but sometimes
not. Needles pierced our veins until they scarred,

jammed up, collapsed. I saw on Facebook that he'd
died. His wife had done a post. The post revealed
she'd loved him well. But still, to learn on Facebook
that he'd died, that was hard. We'd kept each other
buoyed, shared the ride. But then we went our
separate ways. She said he often fell asleep in

sun, toward the end (basking, warm). In truth, I'd
barely known him. She said they'd made it back
to Yosemite, Bridal Veil Falls, one last time. As I was
teaching, one balmy evening, my friend Steve died,
a blanket drawn (I like to think) up to his chin.
And I went on.

Fed Ex-pectations

Listening for the song
of the Fed Ex truck,
waiting for that lonesome
tune of an engine whine
   idling
outside my door, the tread
of footsteps on the stairs,
and then the greedy beat
of my heart as it longs
for delivery.

I can see my duvet
in the clear plastic bag
that zips all the way round,
a giant gingko print,
  coming
my way from Amazon
dot com, rolling along
on Interstate 5, past
rustic barns, Holiday
Inns, strip malls, car beams, 
incumbent dreams.

I can track my box if
I so desire. Click
the links, see the route, count
the weeks, the days, the doubts
   that lead
me back to square one. Oh
Fed Ex man      I know our
crosses must be hard for
you to bear, the loads you
carry – so many things,
things, things you bring to us,
and even as you do
we're poring over
lists of all the things,
you've not yet delivered
to our doors.