Schrodinger's Lesion
Their numbers drawn, the backwards lottery
Almost none were aware they were playing
Assaulted by the poisons that save them
Hairless children with steroid-swollen cheeks
Feared stigmata of chemotherapy
Daily valiance, heroism unsought
Magic bullets are a relative thing
Modern wonder within the foulest curse
Not many years ago, a death sentence
Now, survival rate of eighty percent
It’s miraculous,
but if it’s your child
Then it’s a slow round of
Russian Roulette
Our own bullet burn unforgettable
Swelling in his eye, excised then regrown
For those of you playing along at home
Regrowth is a very ominous sign
Mucous Associated Lymphoma
Our newest demon, bane of our baby
Based on looks, it’s sixty percent likely
The microscope will have the final word
Sword of Damocles hangs
for six long weeks
As a succession of pathologists shrug
I can do the math much quicker than that
It’s sixty percent times twenty percent,
Probability times mortality
Twelve percent chance he will not live five years
Our sweet baby boy, turned budding young man
A gun with eight cylinders, one cartridge
Facts melt like lead into a bullet mold
Neither dead nor alive, Schrödinger’s cat,
His fate, an unseen quantum paradox
Not resolved until we open his box
And create life or death by witnessing.
Savoring the taste of each day as a
Maddening flavor of infinity
As we wait for a loud click or a bang
Finally the word arrives:
no cancer.
Spared, this fate of others,
no good reason
Not a part of God’s plan for us
this time
5/22/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
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