will-o’-the-wisp

when you agonized over bed sheets and bedpans,

the drip of the IV and the trip of your heartbeat,

the messages (or lack thereof) that you received and the faces you had to greet,

the sweet, un-soothing words of sorrow spoken over your head,

what did you believe heaven would be?

did the crusted blood on your stitches burst forward like coral?

and your bruises, did they blossom into crocuses –

the violent violet of careless injections and the yellow-green of chemotherapy nausea?

what about your articulate thoughts, the ones under your sunken skull?

surely they went out the window only to perform sun dance amidst

the snowdrops at the end of your winter.

when you agonized over your will and your will to fight,

the house-turned-mausoleum and the North-less children,

what did you believe heaven would be?

Originally published at phantasmagothica.wordpress.com on April 2, 2019.