She cut her skin with fingernails
And tore her gut apart
To peek through her intestines - into the pit.
There, giant monsters grew into nightmares
And cells multiplied.
How could the sickness - out of her body -
Be growing within her?
Another sunrise, in their respective cities,
Another medical rendez-vous.
She was going to be ahead, alone and wondering,
All the colors of the wind
Behind the new old sun.
She was going to be in bed, at work, in queue,
On call or maybe in a bathroom inside
A creamy building or an empty terrace, staring.
How could she exist in two souls at once?
They had had time to talk about death
When it was happening to others,
People of profound value, people that left
Deep tissue scars and explanations,
But the conversation about their own deaths,
While partially started,
Was quite yet premature.
She was scared of being old, sick and not able
To take care of herself but
These were preemptive photos of unseen futures
Always portraying her at age eighty.
The albums of last ten years
Didn’t have alternate constructions
Of bed-ridden and bruised with injections
At twenty-seven, and their lack of
In advance preparation,
Left her speechless.
She imagined her fair hair and hazel eyes,
Sat across from her, determined
To ask the unasked questions.
Questions - heavy stones -
Too heavy to carry in her belly,
Her eyelids, fluid,
As she kept reaching
For white tissue papers.
This, she asked, in my body,
Your sickness or my sadness?
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