Remember: I Am Two Things

I know why you look like that
with your brows pressed down over your eyelids
in that cascade of soft flesh made hard.
The cancer is inside me,
but I cannot feel it soaking into my organs in the dark
like you imagine I must.
Your face does that
because you imagine the tumor erasing me,
fading me out into a hairless wisp,
me and my body as one thing taking leave of you.
But I do not feel those fabled fingers gripping my soft tissues;
my body is an ornament around the brain I inhabit.
You see one thing that could leave you;
I see one thing that was never mine
strung around myself, heavy and wet.
If this body must be food,
you would lose two things, I would lose one, and
this fleshly sack would miss nothing.

Comments

[Mr. Head]

...dammit. Why can't I come up with words to describe how good this is? Makes a tight thumping in my throat. Never, ever stop writng.

[bookbinds]

It is always interesting to see ourselves through someone else's eyes and notice the difference between their perception and our own understanding of ourselves. This poem is so nuanced in its understanding of mortality and intimacy. I also read through some of your other poems and they were very powerful and moving!

[wendy]

once drawn, nothing can really be erased. I found this poem very moving.

[SquareTraveler]

This is another fantastic piece of work, beautifully written and very effective, as always. You know I'm a fan. I have to say, though, I think you're giving too much credit to the brain. Consciousness precedes, transcends and is never anchored by that highly overrated organ.

[Clare]

Astoundingly beautiful and sensitive. The lines "you see one thing that could leave you;/I see one thing that was never mine" -- are an important reminder.

[Beth]

I am speechless. What a moving poem.

[chicklegirl]

What gorgeous pathos: the foreshadowing of grief and loss, the tenderness... wow.

[Dave]

Good stuff.