What was It Like, Knowing I Might Die?

Like scissors scissoring but not cutting.

Like the sound of scissors: a slight grinding

and an evil squeak.

My stupidity became a dark stupidity.

My failures howled around my heart

The walls of our funky, falling-down house started moving

as though with cold water.

I crept here and there, a little bent over from surgery,

like a tuba with no uba, a trumpet with no m.

There was nothing on TV

but violence and things for sell.

There was nothing to read about

but the whole history of the future.

I swirled miso into hot cups of water

with strips of slick kombu and nori.

I ate umiboshi plum by the spoonful.

I newly appreciated

the planet’s stricken minerals.

My radiation oncologist was a vaguely perverted Santa.

Otherwise—great guy.

All my frightened loved ones took a step back

and sent flowers.