April 9, 2002
I sit in a Starbucks
sipping a well of steamy darkness.
A young woman exchanges Valentines
with her mother at a table nearby.
My mother never opened
my Valentine’s Card.
Her fingers were too busy
tying the strings of her hospital gown.
An evil family of cells
has invaded our domestic sphere.
They’re harmless individually,
but when combined, they murder.
They are in pursuit of my mother’s vitality,
and therefore of us all.
I don’t fear the pieces of the puzzle,
just their final interactive shape.
I’m lost in a molecular stream of traffic.
The right lane is nowhere to be seen.
I can’t turn around
And the next exit leads to death.
I feel like an architect
with a hopeless task.
I want to build a bridge over that highway,
but my tool box was just run over.
Sleepless nights.
A million letters to compose.
I want to take the road to longevity
and carry my mother with me.