In the Time of Cancer

In Time Of Cancer It was a mark on the screen That came as a letter That no one asked to be delivered It came as room service. It just goes to show How lethal the news can be. How many more sick mornings? How many more sick afternoons? How many more sick late nights? Hey pal if the disease don’t kill you Then the cure most surely will. Why must I wear this disease Like a hairshirt For a sin whose name I will Never know And whose fibres I spit out in a tissue? 2 And what of the yellow sick mornings? Yellowed like old news papers On the floor, Only less easy to ignore. I knew I was a live When I sat in the bathroom down the hall From our room Sometimes waiting for rude knock at the door. But we are not there anymore. Should I wait at Potter’s Field for another rude knock? A nail being hammered into cheap pine For a box marked with a nameless social security number? But I wanted to be cremated.