When the cancer came,
it came
like the sharp
puff of air
blown into the cornea.
Words knocked
against it,
some lifting themselves
gently over, others
lying befuddled and askew,
adding a new
barbed wire to the
cruising altitude,
an if the size of any cumulus,
everything riding on the
next biopsy.
When the cancer
came, it came
like an excerpt
from our future,
which was suddenly
far more personal
than we had imagined,
as we were
suddenly
far more impersonal than
we had anticipated.