“Cancer?” They ask with a strained inflection
Of pity, mixed with “Gotta talk about it.”
At the pharmacy, one woman assaulted: “Breast cancer?”
Irony apologized, “Only alopecia,”
An odd label for two years
Of despairing the unknown that lurked ahead
Trauma, the doc said
Which one, I thought
Bodies were scattered about
Thunderbolts resounded
We all felt the earth move like roller skates
Across the pavement
Skateboards crashed into cement walls
They ask if a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there to listen,
Does it make a sound?
We witnessed the crash as we had others before it.
Bird by bird, that’s what Annie Lamott says
Hair by hair
Saved by a hair
Doomed by an eyelash
And a vagina pubic threadbare
You were there in the driver’s seat
When I pulled the passenger mirror down
To look narcissus in the eye
And the last eyebrow hair fell