© Art by Lønfeldt, Unsplash

Cancer

Like the mantis that clicked
along bark, cannibal
to its mate, cells aggregated
in her organs. My eyes: tired
with malignant nouns.

On the good days
we streamed Planet Earth,
made homage to a cosmos
I could understand as frost
burned her nerves, as
poison bound her
molecules.

Her frailty grazed
the tips of my lashes
& my escape was narrow
as her toxic blood swelled,
her bones infantile against
cleaving light.

In our savage world we lived
as wanderers, watched bestial bodies
devoured as I asked the Holy
for substitution.

He answered in her veins, in
the cord she made taut between
life and death and love.

Now I balance that tie,
and I see all but what it took from me.

Abby Jewett 2019