The Oncologist, Vol. 8, No. 6, 599–600,
December 2003
© 2003 AlphaMed Press
Poetry
Sandra Evans Falconer
807 Cathedral Street, 2nd Floor, Baltimore, Md 21201, (410) 727-4947
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Her Treatment Begins
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First, I would tell you:
you do not need to be afraid.
The treatment room is not large.
It is completely white except
for a wide green border by the ceiling,
like the color of the sea in late September.
Think of fish swimming there.
An assistant with a colored pen
will draw marks along your breast.
Think of diving, high tide,
drying your hair on the back porch in the sun.
Across the room from you is a laser beam.
Throughout the treatment, the beam stays on.
Remember how you rode your bike
barefoot around the lagoon,
how the six o’clock siren made the dogs bark.
You must lie still, arms
raised and crossed over your head.
There will be a noise, steady and loud.
Remember music in the evening drifting
out the dining room windows.
Then the treatment is over.
You can get dressed and go home.
When you lie in bed tonight,
turn on your good side.
Ask this generous world
to fold its great wings
over you and let you rest.
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Next Week
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These cells, Lucy says,
and I know she’s talking about the biopsy –
aren’t about you.
They’re not part of your life,
my nurse friend David tells me.
It’s true.
They’ve nothing to do with the way
I talk to Degas when he cries
until I put his dish down.
Or the dinner parties I have
where my friends and I sit
around the old trunk by the fireplace,
or even how I practice the scales, e, a, ah,
late at night
when none of my neighbors are up.
These cells don’t belong
to you, Lucy says,
and I imagine her flinging them
hard and fast and far away,
from the life I’m living now,
in the skein of things:
friends on the phone,
Degas carefully cleaning his
small yellow dish,
the e’s and ah’s I’m sending from my one body
out into this nighttime air,
the same scales, my favorites, the ones I’m practicing
all this week, and the next.
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Recovery
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The anesthesia still rolled in
across my body this morning
like one of those unexpectedly strong waves
that pulls you quickly
under the water.
It’s Wednesday, around noon,
the day after my surgery.
My body is a village on a coastline
where the residents are
standing on their front porches,
waiting for the sky to clear.
I’m sitting up in bed
with my tapes & a few books,
the windows wide open
so a cheerful sun
can lower itself down
onto the peace lily,
its long green leaves reaching upward.
I’ve left the outside world—temporarily, at least.
For today,
I’m in the world of the body:
the chapel of the throat,
blessing itself with green tea and Gatorade;
the shining kingdom of the skull, the brain,
which is trying to decide
where my Mother & I
will have dinner Saturday night;
the wonderful small town of
the legs & the feet,
moving a bit more steadily
down this beach,
the whole body
stretching itself out
on the red striped towel,
and—very slowly now, very gently,
closing its eyes.
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FOOTNOTES
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Editors’ Note
Our "Reflections" section is specially reserved for the thoughts, feelings, and deep concerns of caregivers, their cancer patients, and their loved ones. The editors encourage you, our readers, to share your reflections.
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Her Treatment Begins
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