A poem from my collection The Body As Haunted
Cancerversary drawing close. The annual scans and invasive exams. Scanxiety begins.
Finger Foods for Failed Apoptosis
They claim cancer eats you alive.
All those cells with razor teeth
rows upon rows, cuisinarts
macerating microscopic sharks
gnawing the non-cancerous tissue
but cancer doesn’t gnaw or eat you-
The pain does,
in small unseasoned bites.
Our bodies are finger foods of
apoptosis’ failings.
Cancer doesn’t get fuel from sugar,
glucose feeds all cells alike,
all cells can find alternative fuels.
Your body is a broken down Tesla
on a flat-bed tow truck,
an oh-shit dashboard
Check Engine Light
dressed as a human being.
Cancerous growths are unborn monsters
We call the oncologist and surgeons
to deliver the tumors from us.
We rarely give them names,
Pathology and radiation tattoos,
scars are their only marked graves.
Hospice doulas exist to help us cross over
the great chasm from life to not-life.
Metastases are just expansion,
like the lungs expand to let in air,
rogue cells on manifest destiny,
wanting their 40 organs and a mule
We make fences they cross
like borders but no one
wants to say “mine” with pride
when new property is claimed by them.
When the diagnosis comes,
the scans and tests confirmed,
there is no congratulation
or gift bag or showers
with humiliating party games
planned by well-meaning friends preparing
for the your new family member
that will take over the house.
No one screams “get clean rags
and boil the water!”,
no one ever dare says
“Call the midwife for death”.
Pixie Bruner © 2024