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Poetry

807 Cathedral Street, 2nd Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201, (410) 727-4947

	A Good Report

Top A Good Report After Breast Cancer Years Out

 

is what I’m looking for
in this follow-up appointment
today with Dr. Fowler.
He’ll look carefully at my skin,
better now, a few weeks after
the radiation
the area around my scar
still raised, but less sore.
He’ll ask me:
Have you gone back to the gym?
Are you still writing?
He’s a practical man,
He knows I need something
I can take with me: a lab report, a statistic,
a summary—everything looks good.
I’ll tuck the report in my folder,
something to hold onto
as I walk out through the waiting room
where the radio’s playing Whitney Houston,
and the leafy green plants in the wicker baskets
are doing just fine.

	After Breast Cancer

Top A Good Report After Breast Cancer Years Out

 

My doctor’s appointments used to be routine:
yearly blood test,
occasional cortisone shot for my bad foot,
a mole removed from my shoulder.
But since last spring,
a doctor’s appointment in my daybook
keeps me turning past readings and rehearsals
to that one page
even though it’s weeks away
that a surgeon or oncologist
will carefully examine
the ecosystem of my body—
cells, lymph nodes, tissues,
searching for what shouldn’t be there.
Every few months I’ll go back,
an invisible tether yoking
me to my doctors,
to the same lavender bruise where
they draw the blood,
to blood pressure higher than I want
wishing these new routines
were like cleaning off my desk, or
lugging the trash downstairs
the mind humming its little tune,
ambling along as always
into the start of another day.

	Years Out

Top A Good Report After Breast Cancer Years Out

 

is a phrase you hear
survivors say:
I’m three years out,
or seven years out,
counting the time between
diagnosis and now,
with no new sign of cancer,
no small sudden lump in the breast.
Now I’m crossing the months
off my own calendar
cutting them into confetti
which one night
three years, seven years from now,
I’ll stand outside
and fling as far as I can
into all those shining stars
a million light years away

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