Frankincense

I smell like church.
I wake to the scent of the censor
swinging, the smoke rising.

Last night, anxious over the scan
I dotted the oil on my chest,
willing it into my lungs,

and another necklace
on my abdomen, place of origin,
in case anything still lives there,

and rubbing it in
the essential oil scented my fingers
which scented my pillows.

Exotic scent of far away,
the tiny rocks brought by the kings,
this oil credited for healing

my specific disease. This morning,
despite the talisman, the news is bad,
not what I wanted, what I feared.

I smell like cancer.
I step through a veil of normality
into today’s Cancerland.

I enter the world of slow-motion dying,
cycles of treatment and recurrence.
On Sunday I will start to travel

to Jerusalem, to Calvary,
with the baby visited by kings,
born to die for our sins.