AFTER TAKING CANCER’S PORTRAIT

 

 

The reality of death comes

and goes like women

talking of Michelangelo.

This time it was a Sunday.

 

Reality is when you turn

from an anvil-dropping character

into a human on a Sunday,

when you breathe heavily

while staring out the window

of a simple truck on the way to Ikea

with a six-year-old strapped

between the driver and passenger,

 

and when she plays her

electronic tablet like a guitar,

like a piano, then like an artist’s palette

with a simple touch.

 

The tablet scene: blue ocean with green

seaweed border. The electronic stickers:

starfish.

 

You add a sticker, and I add a sticker

she says

 

She added one and I added one

with a simple touch until the sea

was filled with starfish.

 

Too many

she says

 

And she touched the eraser

with that same finger

and a starfish vanished.

 

Just like that she said