Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Birthday Poem for Breast Cancer Awareness Month--:Coming Around Again"

On my first post-cancer-treatment birthday, I am celebrating and making plans for the rest of my life with a renewed dedication to living as a creative artist.


COMING AROUND AGAIN

Three years ago—three years of poison and desperate
positive thinking—they cut off my breast,
carving out the lymph nodes
of the underarm as well.
They left me with an ugly, puckered scar
14 inches long and 3 inches wide,
raised one-half to one inch high
along its length, and another
incision 3 inches below that scar
where a length of tubing inserted
into the chest drained
blood and lymph into an attached bag
for 3 ½ pain-filled, sleepless weeks.

Death has come looking for me before this
several times. I have always tricked her
into leaving me to my life a little longer,
Scheherazade putting the random scenes
of daily living into dramatic narrative,
heightening conflict and tension,
generating suspense, embellishing
dull parts to create more spark and excitement,
adding touches of humor to lighten the mood,
a story playing out in front of her
to which she needs to know the ending
before she brings down the final curtain.
I’ve grown familiar with Death’s face,
can read it to tell if I need to spice up the story
because she’s losing interest. Old friend
and familiar, she bears no horror for me any longer.

I have seen the long view through her eyes,
the sacred labyrinth of galaxies
spinning out of control throughout the universe
pulling apart in spiral motion, eternal
dissipation of energy rippling outward
with magic like the violent change brought
by tropical storm clouds seen from the air,
galactic snake coiling around stars and planets
and black holes whirling like water
down a drain, sucking all matter and energy
within reach, voracious maws, widdershins,
sunwise, ears of creation cocked
for the song, symphony, story, vining
through the nebulae, gathering tension
and force, the vast’s giant spring pulled taut,
ready to snap back into the kaleidoscope,
force of tornadoes, whirlwinds,
passing into the still eye surrounded
by the stomp dance of the stars,
Creator’s medicine wheel, coming,
going, bringing, leaving, giving, taking,
moving up and down around the spiral
of time, infinity’s tilt-a-whirl.

Remaining attached to this life, these loved people,
I have no wish to join the stardust spiral dance
of destruction and creation before I must.
I’ll stay here in this incarnation as long as I can,
loving this insane world’s dark and light moments
and the people, trees, birds around me, clinging
until the last to its chiaroscuro, yin and yang.
Still, I won’t fall screaming into the void
when my time is up. I’ve seen the wheel of fortune
that is the cosmos. Life is circular, grinding all of us
into crumbs of creation, raw material for new wonders.
I’ve promised myself and lovely bony Ms. Death
I will embrace my ride on the celestial merry-go-round.
But the story’s not over yet—there’s at least one more chapter
before the spectacular, mystifying, completely satisfying climax.

© 2017 Linda Rodriguez

Thursday, October 12, 2017

"To the Nurse Who Told Me to Grieve for My Breast"--A Poem for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I will be posting a couple of poems for it over the next few weeks. Now that I've made it out the other side of my battle with breast cancer, I post these in honor of those still fighting that war--and in honor of the medical teams, like my own phenomenal team, and the caregivers, family and friends who support all of us as we struggle to defeat this terrible opponent.


TO THE NURSE WHO TOLD ME TO GRIEVE FOR MY BREAST

I sit here unable to understand.
My breasts have been good to me,
I’ll admit to that—
lots of sexual pleasure
through the years,
large cup size when it mattered
to the world around me,
never any problem with infection,
mastitis, fibrosis, cysts.

When I had babies,
my breasts overflowed.
No problem nursing—
I pumped breast milk
for La Leche to deliver
to neonatal preemies.
Men and women who were born too soon
and struggled to live
may be alive today
in part because of my breasts.

It’s not like we’re talking
a hand, an eye, a leg.
It’s just a breast,
mostly a big inconvenience,
always in the way and vulnerable.
Not something I can’t do without.
Losing it won’t cripple me.

And the son of a bitch tried to kill me.


(Published in Black Renaissance Noire, 2015)