Matthew Abuelo Poet Narrative

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.

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