Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Some First Thoughts on Cancer

I wish I could take it out with a tweezer, a Dustbuster. I wish I could vacuum over it with the 1990s beast you used on our living rooms for decades, leaving fresh lines in its wake. I wish I could throw it in the washer and line dry it, like you do with our bed sheets. I wish I could treat it like a grass stain.

I wish I could eradicate it with kind words. I wish I could peel it off like a sticker, scrub it out like a pop stain on a carpet. I wish I could flush it. I wish I could make it laugh and go home.

I wish I could boil it, bake it, throw it out a window. I wish I could take it to the curb. I wish I could drive it to sleep away camp and never pick it up.

I wish I could tell it who you are and what you’ve done, and all the years you’ve put into making everything better. I wish there were a label for you, that said untouchable.

Half of my life I’ve been watching
Half of my life I’ve been waking up
Birds in the sky could warn me
There’s no life like the slow life

Franklin and Fulton, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn

06 July 2018

 

Waiting out the rain on 4th of July in Cold Spring, New York.