They say only the good die young
But if age is just a number
Then to whom does this apply
Especially when we know
There’s not enough good in this world
To make that true
My mother was 58
Cancer came for her like
Like Lucifer, falling from heaven and into her lungs
She’d had pain for years,
But she had learned to endure it
Kicked out as a teenager
Marrying my abusive father
And surviving me
She learned to live with pain until
Pain became a squatter in her body
She looked for answers in the eyes of doctors
Who had too little time
And checked their watches and tapped screens
Removed her gallbladder – not the pain
Gave her cortisol injections – still wrong
Finally a CT scan showed the the serpent
That wrapped itself around her lungs
And her spine and down to her hip
And there was a spot in her brain
Small C cell, which had taken my
Mother’s mother 4 years prior
And may take me one day
The call came one day in early June
My stepfather, a Scorpio like me
With a voice like sandpaper but kind eyes
That could stare through you
His voice...