his own

cancer poem

My unconscious is set like a boomerang 

Whipping back and back and back 

To the faded story of his solid body

Strong and steady and abiding as my own

I forget the new narrative that lives in him

Because as much as it is my new story too

it is not my body. Not the same. 

Even though I cannot shake lose the dream 

of our lives,

great and long, 

still unfolding,

I remember that he has already let it go. 

He lives in the new truth 

of easy days

hard days

days when it just fucking sucks to remember

to take the pills

to eat now 

to not eat now

to rest because that was too much

to go because maybe there is more energy

but wait no now there is more pain again

And while he is there

I am still 

in the decades long plan 

of tending children

tending animals

tending land

tending each other. 

Cuz all we have is this dream.

Cuz all we have is this one life. 

But maybe maybe maybe

that’s what is gone too

Along with everything else solid that we thought

we were building together up on this hillside.

I am sorry I forget. 

Especially in all of the moments that he remembers. 

I worry he feels I have 

left him 

more completely in those moments. 

That I can skate 

in the for-now-still-intact false belief 

of my own body’s promised longevity.

I want to hollow out a hole for myself then, 

deep inside his neck, or leg, or side. 

Make his body mine again 

the way they were during all of the years 

that I lost track of his life as something 

unique from mine.

This is the worst truth of all of the new truths we are learning. 

That we are each our own in not just the beautiful, independent, and reclaimed ways;

But each our own, more unknown than known.