It’s been a while since I looked at any of the poems in my recent book.  After revising and proofreading them so many times, I really thought I’d never want to look at any of them again!  But, for some reason, as my three-month scan cycle is approaching its end, I opened the book to look at my Going to Hel section, which includes a bunch of poems from when I was actively dealing with cancer.

I have been fortunate to be 2 ½ years in remission now. Sometimes, life almost seems “normal” now.  Sometimes.  Almost. But then scanxiety (a word I'd never heard until cancer) unavoidably creeps in. And today I re-read the following poem:

Undying Companion 

 

Once upon a time,

         the word cancer

evoked such terror

         that merely reading

or saying it superstitiously

         tempted a raging

death curse into

         the body.

 

How things have changed,

         now that the interloper

invisibly insinuated its rapidly

         growing presence inside.

I can say the word now,

         without flinching.

Even after surgical removal,

         this disease has asserted

its place as my undying companion,

         and always will.

 

I will walk with cancer.

         I will dance with cancer,

I will sit with cancer, and

         I will sleep with cancer,

until I sleep

         for good.

 

It is not that the terror

         has dispersed.

It is only that uncertainty,

         which is true for all,

has traveled from a

         complacent distance

to take hold

         of my hand.

            

Uncertainty is truly what we all have. Here it is again, my undying companion.